Beer

Our Weekly Picks

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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THURSDAY 1

FILM

Gumby Dharma

When he created the characters Gumby and Pokey in the 1950s, Art Clokey indelibly imbedded himself into modern pop culture, making a lasting and loving impression on generations of fans. That magical connection is chronicled in the Emmy-winning 2005 documentary Gumby Dharma, which delves into the beloved animator’s long life, canvassing the more well-known side of Clokey and his artistic triumphs, as well as several personal tragedies and his search for a spiritual path. Clokey, who passed away in January, had a studio in Sausalito for many years, and his life and creations will be celebrated tonight at a screening of the wonderful documentary, with its producers and several special guests in attendance. (Sean McCourt)

7 p.m., $6.50–$9

Balboa Theater

3630 Balboa, SF

(415) 221-8184

www.balboamovies.com

www.gumbydharma.com

 

EVENT

Craft Bar

Oh, the infamous Bill Cosby sweater — that oversized knit with a plethora of shapes and colors that makes you cringe at the sight of it. Yeah, that one. Well, now you can air that old thing out and put it to some use at Craft Bar. Enjoy a night of dexterity and drinks as DIY virtuoso Katy Kristin demonstrates how to chop up that old throw and create plush stuffed animals and snuggly beer cozies. Before you know it, you’ll be downing tall cans at Zeitgeist with your new cozy. (Elise-Marie Brown)

6 p.m., $5 (free with student ID)

Museum of Craft and Folk Art

51 Yerba Buena Lane, SF

(415) 227-4888

www.mocfa.org

 

DANCE/PERFORMANCE

Reggie Wilson and Andréya A Ouamba: The Good Dance—Dakar/Brooklyn

Reggie Wilson’s San Francisco debut in 2007 disappointed because it only presented a few short pieces he had created in the 1990s. But at least it whetted the appetite for more substantial work similar to what he had presented in other Bay Area venues. Now all is forgiven. The Good Dance—Dakar/Brooklyn, co-commissioned by YBCA, is a full-evening dance theater piece by Wilson and Senegalese choreographer Andréya Ouamba that explores a mutual preoccupation: the continued presence of the past in our lives. The Mississippi and the Congo serve as the central metaphors for this cross-cultural collaboration of dance, text, and vocals by Wilson’s Fist & Heel Performance Group and Ouamba’s Compagnie 1er Temps. (Rita Felciano)

8 p.m. (through Sat/3), $25–$30

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

700 Howard, SF

(415) 978-ARTS

www.ybca.org

 

VISUAL ART

“A Dog’s Life (with a Special Appearance by Cats)”

A collection of funny cartoons focusing on man’s best friend — along with some pals in the feline world — the new exhibit “A Dog’s Life (with a Special Appearance by Cats)” draws from the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor at the San Francisco Public Library. Among the selections on display are works from artists such as James Thurber, George Booth, and Charles Schulz. Snoopy is in the house. (McCourt)

9 a.m.–8 p.m. (through May 31), free

San Francisco Public Library

Skylight Gallery, sixth floor

100 Larkin, SF

(415) 557-4277

www.sfpl.org

 

COMEDY

Marga’s Laugh Party: April Fools Edition!

Marga Gomez threw an uproarious laugh party in February. Now she’s back to host another night of laughter, dancing, and, of course, boozin’. Special guest W. Kamau Bell is celebrating the release of his new comedy CD, Face Full of Flour (Rooftop Comedy Productions). Other comedians on the bill include Gomez, Yayne Abeba, Tessie Chua, Loren Kraut, and Bucky Sinister, while DJ Sammy Franco brings the music. (Brown)

8 p.m., $10

Cafe du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

FRIDAY 2

EVENT/VISUAL ART

“A Benefit for Ed Hannigan: WonderCon Weekend Party”

As an artist for DC and Marvel comics back in the 1970s and ’80s, Ed Hannigan helped bring to life titles such as Batman, Green Arrow, Spider Man, and more. Now suffering from multiple sclerosis, Hannigan is getting help from some superheroes. The nonprofit Hero Initiative takes care of ailing artists, many of whom have spent their careers as contractors and have no pensions or retirement funds. Tonight the organization is sponsoring a benefit party to raise money for Hannigan’s care, with several artists, such as Sergio Aragones (MAD, Groo), in attendance. The festivities include an auction of rare items. (McCourt)

8 p.m., $10–$35 sliding scale

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

(415) 227-8666

www.cartoonart.org

 

EVENT/VISUAL ART

Lower Haight Art Walk

Art openings and events are notorious for their intimidating nature. The art might be hard to “get,” and the elitists might challenge you on the difference between modern and postmodern perspectives when the reason you went in the first place was to snack on the free-range chicken tacos and sip homemade kombucha. The Lower Haight Art Walk, on the other hand, won’t give you a headache. Expect an evening of bar-hopping, live music, dancing, and — of course — art shows sprinkled throughout a four-block stretch in the Haight. Who knows, you might even like what you see and buy a piece or two. (Brown)

7 p.m., free

400–700 Haight, SF

www.lowerhaight.org

SATURDAY 3

 

COMEDY

Mo’nique

In Anthony Hamilton’s “Sister Big Bones” video, the R&B singer makes an ass of himself for Mo’nique’s curves, donning disguises and crashing his cruiser bike just to get closer to the bodacious lady’s heat. He’s not the only one with a crush. The stand-up comedian has made some of the bravest career choices in the business, augmenting her BET talk show with TV specials in which she talked with women in federal prison and, most famously, her role in last year’s Precious as the most horrific mother of all time — which made her a lock for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. It’s easy to forget that on top of everything, she’s real funny too. Check her stand-up act this weekend — just be prepared to walk away with some more unrequited love in your life. (Caitlin Donohue)

8 p.m., $39.50–$59.50

Paramount Theater

2025 Broadway, Oakl.

(800) 745-3000

www.paramounttheatre.com

 

MUSIC/CLUB

Hard French

Look, hot queers into anything but ancient circuit techno and contemporary plasticene ladybots: I adore your Sunday beer busts, your Friday happy hours, your Monday-night free-for-alls (and all-for-mes). But when it comes to a jam-packed Saturday-afternoon dance party rocking girl groups, boogaloo, and garage stompers, it’s finally oui the hard way — Hard French, that is, a raucous party filling the weekend void with BBQ animals on the grill, marinated animals on the patio and dance floor, and DJ Carnitas and Brown Amy on the tables. DJ Bus Station John joins them this time around for some meaty amuse-bouches. My only quibble? It’s only once a month. Hélas! (Marke B.)

3–8 p.m., $5

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

(415) 282-3325

www.elriosf.com

 

EVENT

Vinyl Addiction Launch Party

Vinyl toys — they’re surprisingly intriguing, aren’t they? Cute little round-headed rabbits and bears, baby dolls and yetis, usually with some subversive detail. That baby doll cranks its mouth open in a scream, and on closer inspection, the rabbit appears to be a necro-bunny, back from the grave. Maybe your little yeti’s sheer smoothness freaks you out after a while. What do they get up to on their shelves, late at night? Jesse Hernandez is on a mission to figure it out. The artist’s new online show, Vinyl Addiction, focuses on the creators of these little monsters, which are popping up all over as offshoots of the manga and graffiti scenes. Watch the premiere in New People’s trippy theater and celebrate the birth of something different in the art world. (Donohue)

7–10 p.m., free

New People

1746 Post, SF

(415) 525-8630

www.vinyladdiction.tv

 

SUNDAY 4

MUSIC/EVENT

Nobunny’s 9th Annual Easter Egg Bash

Can you imagine performing in a stinky, sweaty bunny mask for nine-plus years? Well, I guess you still wouldn’t have it as bad as Buckethead. Nobunny is garage-punker Justin Champlin, and this bunny shows no sign of giving up his floppy-eared head anytime soon, going so far as to stand in for the Easter Bunny himself at today’s Easter Egg Bash. Known for singing pants-less and drunk — often into a microphone shaped like a carrot — Nobunny puts on a show for those of us who like a little spectacle with our music. Go ahead and give a Muppet a hug — just don’t get any yolk in your hair. (Peter Galvin)

With the Bananas, Mayyors, Rantouls, Splinters, and Sir Lord Von Raven

8 p.m., $10

New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com

 

MUSIC

Hot Air Music Festival

Easter in San Francisco may mean hunky Jesi and egg-rolling nunnery, but we contemporary music lovers will be squealing “Good Lord” all day (polymodally chromatically, of course) at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Hot Air marathon. Three wide-eared conservatory graduates — Matthew Cmiel, Andrew Meyerson, and Carolyn Smith — have put together eight straight hours’ worth of rare live aural pyrotechnics, including works by lionized off-beaters Steve Reich, Gyorgy Ligeti, and Lou Harrison, as well as wonderful newbies Mason Bates, Missy Mazzoli, and Luciano Chessa. Add in puppets, the Picasso Quartet, and local bass clarinet duo SQWONK, and that bunny is cooked. We’re stayin’ indoors. (Marke B.)

2–10 p.m., free

SF Conservatory of Music

50 Oak, SF

(415) 864-7326

www.hotairmusic.org

 

MONDAY 5

EVENT/FILM

“SFFS Film Arts Forum: Tales from Terror Town”

The premiere of Peaches Christ’s feature-length directorial debut, All About Evil, is just around the corner, and to whet everyone’s appetite for the nail-polish-hued blood, Christ herself — a.k.a. Joshua Grannell — is on hand tonight to discuss the perils and pleasures of making a movie with more talent (including Mink Stole, Natasha Lyonne, and teen idol Thomas Dekker) than money. Christ will be joined by the Butcher Brothers, whose new movie, The Violent Kind, is a biker bloodbath. (Johnny Ray Huston)

7 p.m., $8 ($5 for members)

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(925) 866-9559

www.sffs.org

 

TUESDAY 6

EVENT/VISUAL ART

“The Roadmap to Extinction: Are Humans Disappearing?”

Every once in a while, a wise man I know will tire of the endless discussion about the impending death of Earth. “It’s not going to be the end of the planet; it’s just going to be the end of us!” he is wont to exclaim. Truly, our global importance wanes as our carbon emissions wax. This self-extermination is the subject of a photo exhibit at this info night–reception for the Global Justice Ecology Project, an organization that works on the topics of climate justice and forest protection. In a uniquely San Franciscan convergence, the night’s learning is going down at Good Vibrations — a store whose arsenal of procreation-inspiring implements might huskily whisper “no” to the photo exhibition’s pressing query. (Donohue)

5:30–7:30 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0400 www.globaljusticeecology.com www.goodvibes.com The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. We cannot guarantee the return of photos, but enclosing an SASE helps. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Benefits: March 31-April 6

David Talbot
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Benefits: March 31-April 6

Ways to have fun while giving back this week

Wednesday, March 31

Wet Wednesday
Party for a great cause at this benefit for the Edgewood Center for Children and Families, a center that provides services for children, teens, and families. Enjoy free food, music by DJ Paul, a raffle for a $450 gift certificate to Las Olas Surfboards and other prizes, and Sierra Nevada beer who will donate $1 for every pint sold.
8 p.m., free
Riptide Cocktails
3639 Taraval, SF
www.riptidesf.com

Friday, April 2

Benefit for Ed Hannigan
Attend this WonderCon Weekend party where a portion of the proceeds will go to the currently exhibited comic book artist Ed Hannigan who suffers from multiple sclerosis. Featuring a silent auction and food and drink.
8 p.m., $10-35 sliding scale
Cartoon Art Museum
655 Mission, SF
(415) CAR-TOON
www.cartoonart.org

Saturday, April 3

Shoebox Studios
Help Shoebox Studios celebrate their recent move to a larger location, which will help them to offer their body positive, safe dance, art, and martial arts classes to more members of the community. Cocktail reception and silent auction of goods, services, and artworks followed by party featuring live music by Rhubarb Whiskey, dance performances, and more.
Cocktail reception and silent auction: 5 p.m., free
Party: 7 p.m., $5 donation
Shoebox Studios
864 Folsom, SF
(415) 861-5976

Monday, April 5

“Relief”
Attend this San Francisco Art Institute MFA candidate silent auction event, where all proceeds will be donated to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Work of painters, photographers, sculptors, designers, filmmakers, and more will be showcased. Featuring music performances and hors d’oeuvres.
5 p.m.
San Francisco Art Institute
Courtyard
800 Chestnut, SF
www.sfai.edu

Sit, lie, stand and fight

Sasha Cuttler
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Sit, lie, stand and fight

A version of the following op-ed by Ben Rosenfeld ran in this week’s Guardian, edited for space reasons, and it’s generating quite a lively discussion here. He has asked us to post this extended dance mix of his piece, which offers more political context and gets into some of the issues raised in this weeks’ cover story, which is also generating heated debate. So here it is:

            This is a call out to creative, fun-loving San Franciscans: The mayor, the police chief, and their downtown cronies have declared war on our grassroots arts culture, and they are coming for your actual and conceptual space next. All that stands between the town you love and their vision of San Francisco as one big mercantile zone is a single vote progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors. But come November, they see the chance to take that away. The future they promise is already manifest in their many recent attacks on public and private gatherings, and their efforts to wrest the commons from the commoners.

            On Halloween 2009, the San Francisco Police, under their new chief, Los Angeles transplant George Gascón, shut down the Take Back Halloween Flashdance in front of the Ferry Building before DJ Amandeep “Deep” Jawa even arrived. Then they shut down several smaller street parties. (SFBG, 11/2/09) Their official reason—that organizers lacked permits—is what Bill Clinton famously termed an explanation, but not an excuse. The SFPD has a long history not only of tolerating unpermitted gatherings, but of re-routing traffic around and even escorting them. They are fully empowered to grant the equivalent of on-the-fly permits, a concept recognized in federal parks regulations. Applying for an actual permit is cumbersome, costly, anti-spontaneous, and reinforces the government’s view of itself as censor.

            Since Halloween, Chief Gascón’s force has been striking a mighty blow against crime by writing scores of open container citations to revelers in Dolores Park; fining or forcing the closure of SOMA clubs and bars for failing to conform to every fickle letter of the law; and sending undercover officers into warehouse and studio parties to bust them from within, sometimes violently, and without warrants. Their alpha party-crasher is a twitchy undercover cop named Larry Bertrand. He reportedly makes a habit of gratuitously attacking partygoers and vandalizing property, especially DJ equipment. One DJ wrote on a confidential email list: “I have been telling every DJ I know to run with their gear when your party gets busted [by Bertrand].” Not only has the chief failed to rein in Bertrand, but he wants to put a Taser in his hand, and in the hands of a rotten core of approximately 100 other officers whom the Chron found in 2006 are responsible for most citizen complaints, but whom the Department and this chief have systematically failed to discipline.

            Perhaps the most un-San Franciscan of all of Gascón’s initiatives is his demand for an anti-sit/lie ordinance, which would literally criminalize the very act of sitting or lying on certain public sidewalks at certain times. Never mind the fact that most violent crime is committed by people standing up and in striking range. Gascón appears to share the mayor’s philosophy that homelessness is just an aesthetic problem the rest of us should hose off our sidewalks. Not only is the idea just plain mean, it is anathema to San Francisco’s culture of compassion and broadmindedness, and its affirmative celebration of vibrant street culture. The danger is not that the police will arrest everyone who dares to take a load off or sit and sip a Snapple against the side of a building, but that they will enforce the law selectively according to their own purity tests, while robbing the rest of us of a diverse street scene that makes us all richer.

            To be sure, essential San Francisco has reasserted itself in the teeth of earlier culture wars, if in ever wealthier iterations. When Willie Brown stood in front of Critical Mass in 1997 and declared it illegal, riders blew by him like he was a grand prix flagman, and ridership surged from one or two thousand to five to seven thousand. What’s different this time are the demographics. San Francisco is richer than ever before, even at the height of the dot.com boom. Rents are through the roof. Everywhere, industrial warehouses and studios are drying up and concept industrial restaurants and bars are sprouting up. A new wave of young, hip residents has arrived seeking Dionysus, but they want no part of the political machinations under his robe. They are liberal, but they are not active. At least not yet. The mayor, the chief, and the norm core they serve are counting on our collective non-engagement. If we don’t band together—hipsters, activists, artists, and fun-loving folk all—we will watch the San Francisco we cherish slip away.

            On March 27, reclaim public space. Sit and lie on the public sidewalk. March and sing in the public street. Picnic on the pavement. Pop open a beer in Dolores Park. Do it without a permit. The Constitution is your permit. San Francisco’s heritage of artistic experimentation is your permit. Hell, the people telling you to get a permit flocked here because people like you marched around them in the first place and made this City a model of art and innovation for the world. Do it for them too. This is a defining moment. They are playing for keeps and so must we. Let’s bask in San Francisco’s ongoing heyday, not in quaint stories of the good times that used to be.

La guerra de los Jarritos

Andrew Lam
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La guerra de los Jarritos

In the mid-Pacific Mexican state of Jalisco, jarritos, small earthenware pots, are used for many things– drinking and decoration of homes, primarily. But multi national corporation Novamex has claimed the word for itself — and is forcing small businesses, like Los Jarritos Restaurant on South Van Ness Avenue, to change their longheld names to accommodate that fact.

Dolores Reyes opened her family run Mission District restaurant in 1988, about the same year that Novamex began importing their popular fruit sodas into the United States. Though the Reyes initially stocked the drink, the decision to name their restaurant ‘Los Jarritos’ was based on their family’s heritage down south. Los Jarritos became a neighborhood fixture, famous for their breakfast chilaquiles.

“Jarritos are an important cultural item in Jalisco,” says Roy Gordet, the Reyes’ attorney. “By naming her restaurant after them, Dolores felt more connected to her family back in Mexico.” 

She could have hardly expected that, 15 years later, she’d be fighting her soda supplier over use of this cultural invocation. And they weren’t the only ones. Novamex targeted restaurants and taquerias with the name all over the country with legal action — approximately 30 by Gordet’s count.

“In my situation, I think they brought the lawyer because they move by money, not by anything else,” says Edith Marisol-Rivera. Marisol-Rivera’s own Los Jarritos taqueria in Eugene, Oregon, had been open for seven years when she received news from Novamex that she would have to change her businesses’ name- or else.

No one’s drinking soda with their late afternoon lunch at Los Jarritos Restaurant

“They were suing us for more than $50,000 if we didn’t change our name,” she says. “We are a small business, and we don’t have a lot of money, so I didn’t think there was a good reason to fight them.” Edith, whose mother had brought hundreds of jarritos when she moved from El Salvador, still decorates her taqueria with the jars- but the sign over the door now read El Jarro Azul. “We thought if they’re located in Texas, they should let people have their own name. But I guess not,” she gives a rueful laugh. “They’re thinking we’re going to steal their name and start making sodas or something like that.”

In contrast, Reyes decided to stand her ground. “We claimed some of their trademark registrations were invalid,” says Gordet. Reyes filed counter claims against Novamex’s, hoping to show that the restaurant had committed no legal infringement on the name Jarritos. The corporation’s case was thrown out by federal judge Jeffery White, but then reinstated by the Ninth Circuit Court. It had been a lengthy legal battle.

Dolores’ struggle resonated with other small business owners. “I talked to Dolores and she said she had the business for 18 years. I told her if she has the money she should fight,” says Marisol-Rivera. “It’s hard to fight these big companies, they’re everywhere now. I gave up because it was a lot of stress for me, but I was glad Senora Dolores kept doing it.”

But eventually, the wearing court battle was too much for Reyes. “The case has now been dismissed by the court,” says Gordet. According to the dismissal filed with the court, all claims have been dropped and the restaurant will change its name. “They didn’t expect Dolores Reyes to fight as valiantly as she did,” says Gordet. “But now everybody is going to move on. Generally, that’s considered a good thing.” Novamex refused to comment on the case for this article, saying they were under a confidentiality agreement to remain silent.

Times va cambiando for Los Jarritos Restaurant

On a recent sunny afternoon, a diverse crowd sat in Los Jarritos, enjoying a late lunch. Construction workers, Latino and White, sat at the lunch counter with plates of food and a beer (not surprising, the restaurant stopped carrying the Jarritos soda five or six years ago- around the time the legal battle began). Families lounged at tables, enjoying the sunny atmosphere imparted by the dining room’s colorful decorations- shelves upon shelves of traditional pottery, and strings of small jarritos looped around pillars.

But stuck to the front door, there is a bilingual sign that invokes Novamex’s legal challenge. “Los Jarritos restaurant will be changing its name… but we will be run by the same family members and owners. Thank you for understanding.”

Los Jarritos Restaurant (for now)

901 South Van Ness, SF

(415) 648-8383

www.losjarritos.com

 

March me, baby

Andrew Lam
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March Fourth Marching Band is coming to town (Fri/26, Cellspace). Throw up your batons! Toss about that pocket-stored confetti! Let the high steppin’, flair totin’ cyclone of happiness begin!

Perhaps I should explain.

These guys are big in my hometown of Portland, Oregon- and believe when I tell you I understand that there’s nothing that a San Franciscan is less interested in than what is big in Portland, Oregon. One need only look to the enscription above the front door of Beat mecca Café Vesuvio, which reads “we are itching to get away from Portland, Oregon,” to know that our distant neighbor to the north is seen as a bit provincial.

But nonetheless, good things are conceived of up in those green, piney dales- and March Fourth’s appeal translates more than, say, Gore Tex and constant deluge. First formed in 2003 to perform covers of Fela Kuti, Rebirth Brass Band and Fleetwood Mac at a Mardi Gras party, they have since won Best Local Band honors and will probably go on the Portland penny when the West Coast finally secedes from the rest of the country. They are a marching band made crazy, given wings and learned to fly high above in the starry skies.

Once I went to a March Fourth show (shoutout to the Doug Fir Lounge on East Burnside!), and was movin’ and groovin’ my way in the front row when I suddenly looked up out of my hip shaking reverie to find the band, brass instruments and all, had disembarked from the stage and completely surrounded our portion of audience. It was like a hippie drum circle crossed with that Drumline movie, crossed with one of those pre game football huddles where everyone winds up jumping and roaring.

Yes, it was like that. And given that on Friday, they’ll be sharing the stage (ring?) with the acrobats, contortionists, lasso twirlers, pyrotechnicians, and assorted hooligans of the Wanderlust Circus, it would appear that the show will be even more life endowing and wonderful.

Ah, consider the homesickness temporarily assuaged. Now all we’re missing in SF is Portland’s superlative beer and pizza movie theaters – can we work on that one next?

March Fourth Marching Band

w/ Wanderlust Circus, Saqi, Smoove & The Conscious Carnival Midway

Fri/27 10 p.m., $10-15

Cellspace

2050 Bryant, SF

(415) 648-7562

www.vaudeviresociety.com

Viva, chicas

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Viva, chicas

SUPER EGO Your kiki, cross-eyed club correspondent just returned, ass-tanned and full of mescal, from Mexico D.F. You’d think with all the lithe, young emo Altinos running around the bright and trash-strewn apocalyptic neighborhoods, their anime hair-spikes poking through the eye-level smog, there’d be a hopping alternaqueer club scene. But no — although Marrakech mixed in some thrashy Mexi-core with retro-electro hits and Tom’s Leather Bar (no leather, but lots of opera and a surprise Dutch blowjob — don’t ask) served up bored go-gos so over it they surely must have been parodying the concept of bored go-gos. Tal vez no pensaron en esto. And El Viena brought some boot-kicking banda, bringing to mind our own outstanding La Bota Loca party, Saturdays at Oakland’s Club 21 (www.club21oakland.com).

Otherwise, it was wall-to-wall Gaga. I blame NAFTA. Still, the drag saved it. The regal, bodystockinged reinas of Butterflies had me choking on my free peanuts, singing along to Celia Cruz, and the heartfelt, ramshackle performances at Oasis floated on a sea of waved white hankies and tossed carnations. But the most magical moment happened at Club 33. Mexico City nightlife is in turmoil at the moment — a recent spate of violence has forced bars to close earlier than usual. So, at precisely 2 a.m., to avoid police attention, we were locked inside the tiny, dark, hipster-strewn 33, speakeasy-like, while a dead-on drag impersonation of ranchera legend Paquita La Del Barrio (who recently said she’d rather see a child die than be adopted by a gay couple, que?) crooned us into ethereal swoons beneath a dinky mirrorball. D.F. I love you.

 

SWEDISH INVASION

OK, I’m officially weirded out that Swedes are everywhere again. But hey, if they can Nordic-track the hip and the hop like rhymesters Looptroop, Adam Tensta, and Timbuktu and Chords then I’m all blue-eyed with it. They’ll be showing off the multicultural side of state socialism, with hyper-eclectic styles and jokester flair.

Thu/25, 9 p.m., $10. Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com

 

THE NEW 7TH HEAVEN ROLLER DISCO

Rollerskating parties — CELLSpace’s Black Rock Roller Disco and Mighty’s Roller Disco have tackled them, nightlife-wise, to insanely popular and hilariously hip-bruising effect. Now Mezzanine tosses its sequined fedora in the rink, with glittering DJs Conor, Chris Orr, BT Magnum, and Jordan. Crack that whip.

Thu/25, 9 p.m., $5 entry/$5 skate rental. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

 

MOSSMOSS

Local quality techno whiz Alland Byallo’s Nightlight Music label (www.nightlight-music.com) has been hosting a primo monthly throwdown every fourth Friday at 222 Hyde, and the goodies keep coming — this month features a two-hour set by local blorpy stabber Mossmoss, whose playful glitches always pep my roll.

Fri/26, 10 p.m., $5. 222 Hyde, SF. www.222hyde.com

 

PRINCE LANGUAGE

If you missed DJ Greg Wilson at Triple Crown last week, I weep for you. The tasty, spooky rare funk, disco, global, soul, and New Wave re-edit wave keeps rolling over us, however. New York hottie Prince Language keeps it tight, chopped, and almost familiar — from Sharon Redd to the Rapture, Ahmed Fakroun to the Droyds.

Fri/26, 10 p.m., $8. SOM, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com

 

TRANNYSHACK DAVID BOWIE TRIBUTE

Yes, we may have seen it all from the Trannyshackers — but trash drag can never really jump the Trannyshark. It’s foolproof! One of the club’s bloody jewels in its crown of regular tribute nights is this stardust fete, featuring, like, 40 queens and DJ Omar. (Watch for my favorite thin white drag, Kiddie.)

Fri/26, 10 p.m., $12. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com

 

OTTER POPS

Gays: they are animals. Yet they’re so full of benefits. Combine your love of skinny, hairy queers with your yearning for philanthropy at this fuzzy shindig. Lightly furred cuties take the stage for a “Hot Otter Contest” (hopefully manscape-free), while $10 beer bust proceeds go to benefit the Marine Mammal Center. DJ Bus Station John helps you lick down to the stick. Purposes for porpoises? Positively.

March 27, 9 p.m., free. Lone Star Saloon, 1354 Harrison, SF. www.lonestarsaloon.com

 

STARGATE

If you haven’t checked out Temple’s sci-fi warper “Stargate-Portal Room” designed by artist Xavi, then this hyperdimensional celebration is calling out to you across the galaxy. Get alien with tech-breaks, acid crunk psych-heroes an-ten-nae, Deru, Lotus Drops, Phalanx, Drag’nfly, and dozens others.

March 28, 10 p.m., $5. Temple, 540 Howard, SF. www.templesf.com

Neighborliness

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Neighborliness

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS My soccer team is good. They win without me by gaudy scores like 18-1. When I’m there we still win, mostly, but with better manners. And sometimes we tie or even lose, but only when I’m there. This makes me feel needed.

After games the guys drink beer out of Dixie cups then go grocery shopping, because they’re married, and the girls, being single, go out for brunch or lunch or breakfast and talk about the guys. We wonder what they said, since they speak Portuguese and we don’t. My assumption has always been that they are yelling at me.

They play hard, but then they seem so nice, with their Dixie cups and shopping lists. Of course I am in love with my city right now, and all the people, grocery stores, and restaurants in it.

Even Tartine, which is the view from my new window, and on weekends especially is loused with line-loving wahoos. I love Tartine because I ate a sandwich from there once, a few years ago, and as I recall it was pretty fucking great. But also I love them because they represent a very special challenge to me, and you all know how I appreciate a good challenge.

So: my long-term goal in my new go-round at 18th and Guerrero streets is to annoy Tartine out of business. Just for fun! And not by saying mean things about them either. Obviously some talented folks are putting out some cool beans over there, to line ’em up like they do. No, I have in mind a more neighborly way to undo them.

First, let me fire up my tiny shitty old studio-size gas oven, then I will have to learn how to make morning buns better than theirs. Check that, then I will have to learn what a morning bun is. Hold on a second.

(Insert sound of idle whistling here)

I’m back. OK, mmm, hold on a second, my fingers are pretty sticky. OK, don’t worry, this is not a review of Tartine. I’m not going to say a word about their morning buns, only that it might take me a long time to put them out of business. But that’s fine, because time is a thing I have. Time, a tiny oven, and the means to make a cup or two of coffee.

My plan, then: to swing my gated window open and play my steel drum so enticingly that everyone standing in Tartine’s line will cross the street to see what gives. Then … I will give. I will offer them morning buns, mugs of coffee, and semi-intelligent conversation, for free of course, and so dazzled will they be by my neighborliness that they will eventually forget all about why they came to the Mission in the first place.

It’s a dream, and a distant and misty one at that, I know.

Meanwhile, for the last couple Sundays while all of Chestnut Street has been lined up outside my Mission District window, I have been on Chestnut Street having brunch, lunch, and breakfast at the wonderful and empty Chestnut Diner.

My new favorite restaurant! It was turned on to me by Alice Shaw the Person, who, having a car, carts us to and from our soccer games, which have been conducted lately in the Marina.

The omelets are great. The hash browns are fine. The décor is fantastic: light-blue-topped chrome stools around a J-shaped counter, with booths on either side.

I just can’t recommend the burgers, because they don’t understand rare there. Listen:

Me: Can I have that rare please?

Waitressperson: Half?

Me: (thinking, half?) Huh? No, Rare.

She: Oh, well.

Me: No, rare.

She: Half?

And so on until I gave up and ordered an omelet. But she looked sad about this, so I explained what rare meant and ordered a bacon burger. That way, when it came overcooked (which of course it did), it would still taste good. Which of course it did. *

CHESTNUT DINER

Daily: 7 a.m.–3 p.m.

1312 Chestnut, SF

(415) 441-1168

MC/V

No alcohol

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

The commons and commoners

David Talbot
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48
The commons and commoners

By Ben Rosenfeld


OPINION This is a call out to creative, fun-loving San Franciscans: the mayor, the police chief, and their downtown cronies have declared war on our grassroots arts culture, and they are coming for your actual and conceptual space next. The future they promise is manifest in their many recent attacks on public and private gatherings, and their efforts to wrest the commons from the commoners.

On Halloween 2009, the San Francisco Police, under their new chief, Los Angeles transplant George Gascón, shut down the Take Back Halloween Flashdance in front of the Ferry Building before DJ Amandeep "Deep" Jawa even arrived. Then they shut down several smaller street parties. Their official reason — that organizers lacked permits — is what Bill Clinton famously termed an explanation, but not an excuse.

The SFPD has a long history of not only tolerating unpermitted gatherings, but of rerouting traffic around and even escorting them. The cops are fully empowered to grant the equivalent of on-the-fly permits. Applying for an actual permit is cumbersome, costly, anti-spontaneous — and reinforces the SFPD’s view of itself as censor.

Since Halloween, Chief Gascón’s force has been striking a mighty blow against crime by writing scores of open container citations to revelers in Dolores Park; fining or forcing the closure of SoMa clubs and bars for failing to conform to every fickle letter of the law; and sending undercover officers into warehouse and studio parties to bust them from within, sometimes violently, and without warrants.

Perhaps the most un-San Franciscan of all Gascón’s initiatives is his demand for an ordinance that would literally criminalize the very act of sitting or lying on certain public sidewalks at certain times. Never mind the fact that most violent crime is committed by people standing up and in striking range.

Not only is the idea just plain mean, it is anathema to San Francisco’s culture of compassion and broadmindedness, and its affirmative celebration of vibrant street culture. The danger is not that the police will arrest everyone who dares to take a load off or sit and sip a Snapple against the side of a building, but that they will enforce the law selectively according to their own purity tests, while robbing the rest of us of the diversity and ferment which make us richer.

On March 27, reclaim space for art and innovation. Sit and lie on the public sidewalk! March and sing in the public street! Picnic on the pavement. Pop open a beer in Dolores Park. Do it without a permit. The Constitution is your permit. San Francisco’s heritage of artistic experimentation is your permit. Hell, the people telling you to get a permit flocked here because people like you marched around them in the first place and made this city inspiring. Do it for them too. This is a defining moment. They are playing for keeps, and so must we. Let’s bask in San Francisco’s ongoing heyday, not in quaint stories of what used to be.

Ben Rosenfeld is a lawyer in San Francisco.

Project One’s mural community

Andrew Lam
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2

There’s a mural by my work I pass everyday that is visually astounding. It’s a super burner- a big, looping maze of letters, or maybe just design, that must represent in its whorls every color of the rainbow. It takes up the street side of a long building on a background of black-on-black fluer de lis design at Turk and Mason. Not to trivialize the sweet and sour roughness of ‘Loin life, but it gives the dope heads, the police cruisers and the general down-and-outery of the ‘hood an air of artistry. 

You don’t see color like that just anywhere.

Which was why it was so nice to put a face to the piece during my trip down to Project One gallery to check out their current show “Four Squared,” a collaborative project between Chor Boogie, Apex One, Jet Martinez, and David Chong Lee. Apex One (who spray painted the mural in the Tenderloin) was there putting up a fresh new entryway sign for the gallery, and we got the chance to chat on how the group partnership came to be.

“We all knew each other,” Apex, an SF native, tells me. In what sounds like a phone tree among soccer moms, the four creative graf art legends decided to create what now hangs in Project One- two huge murals, each made of 90 square foot pieces that gallery owner Brooke Waterhouse hopes will enable the younger art fans to buy a piece of the action. 

Check out “Foursquared” at Project One to see Apex One’s entry way design, pictured here mid spray

“I’ve been waiting to do that for awhile; have it set up so you can take a piece of the mural home with you,” says Apex. Painting largely simultaneously (check the vid here for installation shots), the artists created wall sized wonderlands that loosely relate their motifs to each other. A Boogie bird nestles on a Chong Lee design. It makes you wonder what would happen if street artists could drop the tag-on-tag wars forever and instead use their designs to augment the craft already on the wall in front of them. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Project One is also featuring individual works by each of the men on opposing walls from their group effort. They act as a stylistic key to the murals. Here, you can pick out Jet Martinez’s delicate cherry blossom sprigs- there, a lavender tag by Apex, its chunky and curved three dimensional form reminiscent of the architectural detailing on the Victorians he grew up amidst. Chor Boogie’s polychromed tiling work, Chong Lee’s eyeball studded Death Star.

It’s an engaging show to check out in the comfortable space at Project One, happy hour beer in hand. Nicer still? Well, for one, the fact that spring is here. More to the point, the fact that, somewhere, chances are that one of these guys is painting on a wall to beautify your walk to work. And for that, let’s give thanks.

 

“Four Squared”

through April 5th

Project One gallery

251 Rhode Island, SF

(415) 938-7173

www.p1sf.com

Mom was a mess (and then she rubbed all up on me)

John Elberling
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0

Going in to Thee Parkside on Fri/5, I didn’t know what to expect from the show’s openers. Considering Mom’s antics, it’s probably best that I didn’t do any pre-show research. In a nutshell, Mom was a mess.

Mom slithered and writhed around on- and offstage (mostly off). She wore a red dress that ended up beer-soaked, while she sort of sang into a microphone with heavily distorted cartoonish effects. It was like a demonic version of Minnie Mouse (she had the ears and everything). The whole experience was surreal. Maybe nightmarish is a better word. Mom’s trashed red dress would slide up over her waist, exposing all of her, since she wore no panties. Her one ruby red slipper slid around the floor while the other foot remained bare and got all gunked up from cement during some staggered dance moves.

If shock value was what Mom was going for…then mission accomplished. Just when I thought the spectacle was winding down, I went to the smoking patio to answer my brother’s phone call. I figured I’d chat him up about my parents’ upcoming visit from the Midwest. Immersed in conversation, I was suddenly interrupted by a sweaty, messy Mom, who accosted me and began to rub herself on me as I laughed and backed away while onlookers got an eyeful. Considering that the ‘Loin is now my home base, it didn’t phase me much. I continued talking on the phone, giving my brother the play-by-play. Mom quickly lost interest and stumbled away. I have a feeling real Mom wouldn’t approve.

After the onslaught, I hung out a bit longer on the patio. I was offered some sympathy by a certain unmasked someone who may or may not have been the show’s headliner. He asked if Mom had gotten any blood on me. I replied “No,” adding that I actually had gotten egged. Apparently she threw one at the ceiling and got some yolk and shell on me. Another audience member initially thought it was the sound of breaking glass.

Act two was traditional by comparison, considering it involved drum, bass and guitar. I didn’t think I had seen them before, based on their name, but once I went back inside to check them out I recognized the front man of the Outdoorsmen. They had improved. They did Misfits covers and it was sort of endearing how the lead singer/ guitarist would crack bad jokes into the mike. He mostly cracked himself up. The highlight of their set was a Standells-sounding number dedicated to “cock suckers of the middle of the night”. He was referring to cops.

The outstanding performance of the night came from Indiana’s TV Ghost. The Midwest was represented well here when they took to the stage. Their lanky lead man twitched about with great presence; his guitar in tow and a Dwyer-esque oral fixation with his microphone (inserts into mouth). I guess it sounded like Link Wray meets post-punk, or maybe the Cramps in surf style. In any event it was good to see them again. The first time I witnessed their live act was at the Hemlock, where they played to a nearly empty hall, but they had performed as if they the bar was at capacity or like it was for a televised performance. Such showmanship.

Last but not least, Nobunny seemed to have a stash of new material and it was stage antics and comical-shtick as usual when the costumed “boys and squirrels” played rock and roll that had the crowd eating it up with a spoon. All in all it was a good night — even if Mom took me by surprise.

A lost San Francisco saga

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
A lost San Francisco saga

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC “There are great artists and musicians who will never be discovered,” says Herman Eberitzsch Jr. III “That’s the way it is,” he reasons. “There’s only so much room at the top.”

That’s why you’ve most likely never heard of Eberitzsch (pronounced “eh-bur-itch”) despite his remarkable music talent. He has a name straight out of a gothic fairy tale — far from the iconic, slick-sounding syllables associated with San Francisco’s psychedelic soul renaissance during the late 1960s and ’70s. Yet his recordings hold up to the best of them. “We had a strong conviction that we were the next big thing,” Eberitzsch says. “But we weren’t.”

Each generation harbors a certain aesthetic mood that mutates and evolves under the prescient vision of a limited number of innovators. Their fresh styles, resonant at first, then become formulated and stagnant, disseminated in the norm. We then await the next genius, or at least a movement of collective creativity, to shake things up. But what attunes us to one artistic strand, pregnant with a world of open-ended meaning and feeling, rather than another with just as much potential richness? How do we come to discern between the vanguard and the wayward? And what if we miss something in the process?

Eberitzsch’s unlikely story might just read like a rediscovery of what we overlooked. He recorded hours of bluesy soul fueled by free-form jazz throughout the ’70s that never saw commercial release. He arranged, wrote, sang, and funkified the keys on dozens of songs with mainstays of Santana’s circuit (Coke Escovedo, Linda Tillery), Lee Oskar of War, and Sly Stone’s drummer, Greg Errico, among many others. Most of the musicians who recorded on Eberitzsch’s own arrangements were, by and large, no-namers, yet it’s their music which now stands out.

Eberitzsch’s songs leap and wander. They gracefully move the spirit while grounding the body in rich, earthy grooves. They are a naive and inspiringly audacious attempt at channeling the sort of raw expression that challenges, mesmerizes, fights, and loves. In the midst of so much experimental and groundbreaking sound, Eberitzsch’s music either missed the ears of the right A&R rep or was just not the right kind of different.

 

A CHANCE REDISCOVERY

Now Eberitzsch is sitting across from me in a café near his former Potrero district home, excited to tell his story. He greets me as Allen Ginsberg (my look-alike visage intact, masked in dark beard and glasses), and I feign appreciation for the well-meaning reference, knowing that although Ginsberg had quite a poetic sharpness, he wasn’t the best-looking fellow. But Eberitzsch’s generous charm and earnest happiness with the course his life has taken, despite the disappointments, quickly win me over. Waves of amiable energy overtake the slightly weathered rasp in his voice. A youthful, idealistic Eberitzsch naturally emerges in the course of minutes. In a way, he’s been waiting for this interview for 40 years.

“Atlantic told me, ‘We don’t hear it at this time,'<0x2009>” Eberitzsch says, highlighting the elusive way a record company executive might elongate time, stretching the curt word like a worn rubber band. “But when you invest your life and your heart and soul into a project of your own creation, your own little children of songs, you don’t throw them away. You don’t send them down the River Styx,” he says, laughing. “So I put ’em in the basement.”

That’s where record collector Daniel Borine mistakenly found the two-inch apex tapes, 35 years later, while doing photo research for a reissue project on lost Bay Area modern soul. What those tapes hid — a dusty time capsule of relentless insight and vigor — amazed Borine. In a move away from the prideful hoarding that typically characterizes collectors, Borine wanted to share the tapes with a larger audience and finally do justice to Eberitzsch’s music. He pursued the new and quickly growing business of recorded music archaeology and preservation, an endeavor that mirrors what so many archivists have done already for literature, film, and visual art. Borine had the tapes mastered and organized the tracks into coherent volumes. He plans to put out four full-length records of Eberitzsch’s brilliant efforts, titled the HE3 Project, over the coming years on his own upstart Family Groove Records.

The first chapter of the compilation is set for release on March 30. It focuses on Eberitzsch’s trailblazing efforts from three distinct recording sessions between 1971 and 1974. These recordings capture Eberitzsch’s far-reaching artistry — a grounded and soulful angle on space-jazz psychedelia, informed as much by Weather Report as by Robert Johnson. This is the story of the man behind the HE3 Project.

 

ORIGINS OF A WOULD-BE TRAILBLAZER

Herman Eberitzsch Jr. III was born in San Francisco’s colorful Portola neighborhood in 1947. He grew up in a German household, where he learned to play the classical composers — Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms — at a young age. But somewhere along the way Eberitzsch caught the funk and couldn’t let go. “In my room I listened to James Brown,” he recalls. “When I grooved and played the boogie, I had a powerful left foot that shook the ground. My left foot took down the house, so I eventually had to move out.”

Eberitzsch conjured doo-wop on the corner with the young funky drummer Greg Errico, who lived down the street. He was enraptured by the blues in Oakland, danced to jazzy R&B grooves in San Francisco, and witnessed the emergence of a new psychedelic sound at the Fillmore and in the streets. Immersed in the Bay Area’s magnetic music community, he naturally gravitated to the keys again. “I figured out how to play funky style clavinet and piano,” Eberitzsch says. “They called me Funky Knuckles for short.”

At 21, the freshly-dubbed Funky Knuckles joined a band with Boots Hughston called Sword and the Stone, and was booked by Bill Graham to perform at the Fillmore. The outfit transitioned into a quartet, Shane, with Santana’s David Brown on bass. They hustled around the city making $10 an hour and all the beer they could drink. The city bubbled over with an unparalleled creative force. The time was electric.

That same year — 1968 — Eberitzsch attended UC Berkeley to study psychiatry. But he quit after one semester to pursue music as a career, preferring the organic therapeutic powers of rhythm and melody to the structured treatment of question and answer. “Music is a much more pure form of psychiatry. It has two potentials: it either incites you to create, or it soothes the savage beast,” he says. “I became a knowledgeable person of people through music.” And cyclically, Eberitzsch’s improvisational music erupted from kinetic relationships with people.

Read part two of “A lost San Francisco saga” here.

Urban Tavern

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Urban Tavern

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE A cardinal rule of urban living is that hotel restaurants are to be approached with caution, especially if the hotel is a tentacle of one of the national chain monsters. Some of San Francisco’s best restaurants are in hotels, but those hotels tend to be chic and boutique-y. In the bigger, blander establishments, you’re likely to find yourself eating cioppino from a hollowed-out round of sourdough bread while the whole restaurant spins slowly, like a sideways Ferris wheel in some sad circus.

Urban Tavern is in the Hilton near Union Square — an ominous portent — but once you’re inside, you’d never know you were on the ground floor of a gigantic corporate box. The space doesn’t look like any tavern I’ve ever been in, but it certainly is urban in the best sense: designed but not over-designed, with a few big touches — such as the multicolored horse, sculpted of metal — and plenty of small ones, such as the lampposts made to look like the trunks of slender trees. The restaurant is also bigger than it looks from the street; it runs deep into the building, and maybe this is one reason that noise, which from the signs (many hard surfaces and a general modernist edge) should be a horrific problem, is hardly an issue at all.

Urban Tavern styles itself a “gastropub,” but it could as well be a wine bar since the wine list is extensive and interesting — and, as an added fillip, all bottles are half-price on Sundays. (The mark-down includes half-bottles, which are as well-represented here as any place I’m aware of.) But whether your fancy is beer, wine, or a soigné cocktail, chef Colin Duggan’s cooking holds up its end of the deal, and then some. Duggan was present at the restaurant’s creation in August 2008, and his current menu reflects a tasty dynamism with, as seems to be de rigueur at the moment, a German touch or two, such as a wonderful fresh pretzel ($11), served with slices of grilled caggiano beer sausage (garlicky, like kielbasa), and a broad smear of country mustard.

If your heart lies on the other side of the Rhine, you’ll certainly respond to the cheese puffs (a.k.a. gougères, $5 for three), which are indeed puffy — like little domed stadiums with big pockets of warm, fragrant air inside — and also impressively glazed, I would guess from a proper egg wash. In a similar vein we find a pair of turnovers ($10), pastry triangles the size of sandwich halves filled with crab and king trumpet mushrooms for a sea-sweet, if slightly muted, effect.

The main courses do tend toward tavernishness. There is a burger, along with steak frites and a couple versions of ribs, baby-back and spare, the last being served with a red-wine-based jus we found meaty and slightly sweet. But there is plenty of sophistication too, as in a sturgeon filet ($22) plated atop a jumble of green lentils, sun-dried tomatoes, and braised winter greens. Sturgeon are best-known for their roe, which we call caviar, but their white flesh is dense, meaty, and possibly the most delicious of the freshwater fish. In this country, sturgeon are also farm-raised to an environmental standard that makes them a “good alternative,” according to the Seafood Watch program of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Of course, no gastropub menu would be complete without a vegetarian option, which at Urban Tavern is called a stew ($15) and consists of an iron skillet filled with a variety of roasted vegetables, including broccoli and cauliflower florets, butter beans, carrots, butternut squash, split brussels sprouts, and zucchini, all liberally seasoned with Parmesan cheese and moistened, at your discretion, from the pitcher of vegetable reduction on the side. It takes a certain nerve to do so little to vegetables and a certain faith that from the babble of different voices, a melody will emerge. But it does.

Desserts seem a little pricey at $9 a pop. We very much liked the peanut butter cup, a big disk of peanut butter mousse lacquered with dark chocolate in perhaps the ultimate marriage of New World delectables. The cup was presented with a wafer of peanut brittle and pat of peanut butter ice cream, which we found creamy and peanut buttery but slack somehow, as if a contrasting ingredient had gone missing. The banana trifle, served in a milk jar, was like a slice of banana-cream pie transformed into a parfait with good banana flavor but a bit too much sweetness. Even sweeter than German wine, and that’s pretty sweet.

URBAN TAVERN

Breakfast: 8:30–11 a.m.;

Lunch: 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.; Dinner: 5:30–10 p.m.

333 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 923-4400

www.urbantavernsf.com

Full bar

AE/DC/DS/MC/V

Well-controlled noise

Wheelchair accessible

 

Appetite: Fill your Irish self to the gills at the Liberties

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Appetite: Fill your Irish self to the gills at the Liberties

St. Patty’s Day draws near — for more wild Irish events, check out our rundown in the current Guardian.

The Liberties Bar & Restaurant has always been a welcome respite from some Irish bars: a place where you can kick it up with friends but not so rowdy that you can’t have conversation or a reflective pint. (I particularly like the room tucked to the side with quotes painted on the walls.) It celebrates St. Patty’s all week long with a special Irish menu and long pours of Guinness, Kilkenny, Smithwick’s and Harp. Oh, there’s also plenty of Irish whiskey, like Midleton Rare 21 year, Red Breast 12 year and Black Bush. Irish brunch, beer and whiskey flights round out the week, along with live music on St. Patrick’s Day.

The menu offers crowd-pleasing corned beef and cabbage ($14), cottage pie ($10 – with grass-fed beef, naturally), and bangers and mash ($15). Or go straight to fish and chips ($15) or an Irish potato pancake ($11) sporting smoked salmon. Irish whiskey flights explore various parts of the island, from Fightin’ Irish ($12), a flight highlighting family-owned distilleries, to King of the Emerald Isle ($8), an affordable jaunt through three Irish powerhouses: John Powers, Old Bushmills, Jamesons.

There’s no need to be fighting Irish when St. Patty’s is this raucously delectable.

March 13-19
998 Guerrero Street
415-282-6789
www.theliberties.com

Check out Virginia Miller’s personal dining itinerary site www.theperfectspotsf.com for more food deals and news.

Hump Day headliner: Six reasons to revisit Thee Oh Sees

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Hump Day headliner: Six reasons to revisit Thee Oh Sees

So maybe you’ve seen them before and maybe you haven’t. Thee Oh Sees — performing at El Rio tonight (Wed/10) with Ty Segall, The Fresh & Onlys, and The Baths — are no doubt a San Francisco garage-rock, lo-fi staple that demand you re-sample, swish, and spit for a full taste.

The sound is vintage rock and roll, psychedelic, and ratty. If you’re contemplating staying home on Wednesday night, find someone to give you a swift kiss in the ass and aim for El Rio. Did you really just ask why?

1.    Vocalist John Dwyer’s semi-psychotic lurching and mic swallowing always entertains.
2.    Hot rock chicks with sweat on their brow.
3.    Similar to an ideal one-night stand: Rough. Loud. Vicious. Dirty.
4.    There’s a chance Dwyer could bust out a flute.
5.    You’ll have a legit excuse to skip yoga (or work) in the morning.
6.    Cheap whisky and cheaper beer taste so much better mid-week.

Thee Oh Sees w/The Fresh & Onlys, Ty Segall, The Baths
Wed/10, 8pm, $7
El Rio
3158 Mission Street, SF
www.elriosf.com

Hop on the St. Patty’s wagon

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Hop on the St. Patty’s wagon

culture@sfbg.com

EVENTS Diarmuid Philpott, chairman of this year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade and president of the Irish United Societies, knows a thing or two about SF’s glorious Irish heritage, the holiday’s significant religious and cultural roots, and of course, where the party is for the upcoming week. “First of all, it’s a celebration of being Irish,” Philpott explains. “Everyone wants to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. And they are welcome to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!” So don that emerald green, and buckle down for a hooley of a time.

 

“GETTING THE JOB DONE: IRISH CITIZENS AND A LIFETIME OF CIVIL SERVICE”

What have the Irish ever done for you? Learn about their contributions to our city at this panel discussion, featuring local paddies from the public and private sectors and moderated by Tony Bucher of the Irish Herald. The event is part of the Irish Crossroads Festival, which celebrates the intersection of roots and modernity in Irish culture today.

Thur/11, 7 p.m., free

United Irish Cultural Center

2700 45th Ave. , SF

(415) 810-3774

www.irishamericancrossroads.org

 

159TH ANNUAL ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE AND FESTIVAL

The largest celebration of Emerald Isle culture west of the Mississippi is taking over downtown this weekend — and you want in on the dancin’, pipin’ action. Afterward, head to the Civic Center street festival, featuring vendors, activities, a beer garden and Irish gypsy jazz group, the Doug Martin Avatar Ensemble.

Parade: Sat/13, 11:30 a.m. , free

Starts at 2nd St. and Harrison, SF

Festival: Sat/13 and Sun/14, 11 a m.-5 p.m., free

Civic Center Plaza, SF

www.sfstpatricksdayparade.com

 

ST. PATRICK’S DAY BLOCK PARTY

For a family-oriented celebration, jet down to the United Irish Cultural Center, which will be co-hosting this al fresco event with Java Beach. There’ll be food, drink, games for the kids, jumpy castles — and a zoo across the street if you really want to make a wee one’s day.

Sun/14, 11 a .m.- 4 p.m., free

45th Ave. (between Sloat and Wawona), SF

(415) 661-2700

www.irishcentersf.org

 

HARRINGTON’S BLOCK PARTY

Sure, we’re a city that doesn’t lack for a superlative Irish pub in which to celebrate St. Patty’s — Durty Nelly’s, the Plough and Stars, and the Chieftain come to mind — but Harrington’s joins with neighborhood businesses for a celebration right in the FiDi of it all, closing down the block for performances by Ben Hunter and Celtic Scandal, the Kennelly Irish dancers and big, steaming plates of corn beef and cabbage.

Wed/17, 11 a m-1 a m., free

245 Front, SF

(415) 392-7595

 

BOG SAVAGES

Get a load of the reggae-laced tones of these Irish rebel rockers, who’ve got the street cred to back it up. Frontman Kevin Barry escaped from Belfast’s Long Kesh prison in the IRA’s 1983 “Great Escape.” They rock.

Wed/17, 8:30 p.m., free

Maggie McGarry’s

1353 Grant, SF

(415) 399-9020

www.maggiemcgarrys.com

 

FATHER YORKE DAY

A salute to a real hero. Father Yorke was a 19th century Irish revolutionary and labor activist. His service takes place each year here at All Saint’s — a sober end to a holiday season that can be anything but.

Sun/28, 10:30 p.m., free

All Saints’ Chapel Holy Cross Cemetery

1500 Mission, Colma

www.sfstpatricksdayparade.com

And though the Guinness be full of vitamin D and goodness, take ‘er easy — the real Irish celebrate responsibly. Berg Injury Lawyers are sponsoring the same free cab rides home on St. Patty’s that they do on New Year’s. Call Luxor Cabs at (415) 282-4141 for a lift in the city, or Veterans Cab at (415) 282-4141 for Oakland, Alameda, or Berkeley .

Our weekly picks

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WEDNESDAY 10th

DANCE

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater


Today, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is as much Judith Jamison’s company as it was Ailey’s. Having reluctantly taken on the company’s artistic directorship after Ailey’s death, Jamison has led the troupe for the last 20 years with remarkable perspicacity and skill. Jamison may not be a great choreographer, but she is a great company director and dance visionary. This anniversary season sports three Bay Area premieres. Borrowing the title from Jamison’s autobiography, Ronald K. Brown, something of a visionary himself, set his new Dancing Spirit in her honor. Company dancer-choreographer Matthew Rushing’s Uptown looks to the Harlem Renaissance for inspiration. Finally, Jamison contributes Among Us (Private Spaces: Public Places), a series of vignettes set to a jazz score by Eric Lewis. (Rita Felciano)

8 p.m. (through Sat/13), $36–$62

Zellerbach Hall

UC Berkeley campus, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org

THURSDAY 11th

VISUAL ART

Pepe Moreno


Exploring the life of one of the most iconic characters in the history of comic books, the new "Batman: Yesterday and Tomorrow" exhibit at the Cartoon Art Museum spotlights Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter-ego, starting from his creation by artist Bob Kane and running through his many transformations over the years. Groundbreaking artist Pepe Moreno will be on hand tonight to discuss his revolutionary 1990 graphic novel Batman: Digital Justice, which was written and illustrated using computer hardware and software — one of the first such endeavors undertaken in the comics world. (Sean McCourt)

7 p.m., $5 donation requested

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

(415) 227-8666

www.cartoonart.org

EVENT

Thirsty Bear Beer Tasting


I’m hardly the first person to hop on the eat-everything-organic bandwagon. But when you live in San Francisco, it’s only a matter of time before you start shopping at farmers markets in hopes of finding the perfect toxin-free mango or avocado. Now you can add "organic beer connoisseur" to your list of titles by attending Thirsty Bear’s free organic beer tasting and workshop. You’ll learn all there is to know about sustainable brewing techniques, and get to sample some of the tastiest beers immediate area has to offer. (Elise-Marie Brown)

12-1:30 p.m., free

Green Zebra Environmental Action Center

50 Post, SF

(415) 346.2361

www.thegreenzebra.org

MUSIC

A Sunny Day in Glasgow


A Sunny Day in Glasgow wants you to rethink shoegaze. The Philadelphia trio layers their instruments in a manner that resembles a 21st-century Cocteau Twins, but their wall of sound is never as heavy, aiming instead for a sunny pop atmosphere you wouldn’t expect from the genre. Sometimes the accompanying vocals by Annie Fredrickson and Josh Meakim are maddeningly hard to make out beneath the waves of sound, but then they emerge clearly at just the right moment, like a breath of fresh air. Last year’s sophomore album Ashes Grammar (Mis Ojos Discos) was a sprawling mega-mix of moods, with songs bleeding into songs willy-nilly, and it’s safe to figure that their live show would reflect such a singular aural experience. If the critical reactions to Ashes Grammar are any indication, chances are good A Sunny Day in Glasgow won’t be performing in spaces as tiny as the Hemlock for long. (Peter Galvin)

With the Gold Medalists and Apopka Darkroom

9 p.m., $8

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

EVENT/MUSIC

Free Party for Experience Hendrix Tour


Inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s significant contributions to the music world, his father formed Experience Hendrix, a series of tribute concerts. Debuting in 1995 at Seattle’s Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival, the show has been on the road ever since. The tour comes to the Warfield tonight with a lineup that includes Band of Gypsys’ original bassist Billy Cox, along with Joe Satriani, Kenny Wayne Shephard, Eric Johnson, Susan Tedeschi, and Jonny Lang. Before the show, Hard Rock Café hosts a party with a raffle for tickets and transportation to the show. (Lilan Kane)

4 p.m., free

Hard Rock Café

Pier 39, SF

(415) 956-2013

www.hardrock.com/sanfrancisco

FRIDAY 12th

MUSIC

The Temper Trap


Although these guys were featured in (500) Days of Summer, don’t let that fool you into thinking they’re strictly light and whimsical. Just reminiscing on the first time I saw them gets me giddy inside. Drumsticks flew everywhere, and Dougy Madagi whaled uncontrollably in the mic as the crowd absorbed every drop of their soaring energy. Let’s just say these guys know how to put on a serious show. Now the Melbourne, Australia rockers are making their second trip here as headliners. (Brown)

9 p.m., $22.50

The Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

wwwvenation.com

COMEDY

Dave Attell


You wanna know why you’ve never seen television commercials for Jägermeister? Dave Attell knows a few good reasons. Attell is perhaps best known to mainstream audiences for his stint hosting Comedy Central’s Insomniac, a hilarious late-night, booze-fueled TV program where he explored what to do in various cities while on tour. This weekend the sometimes abrasive but always gut-bustingly funny comedian brings his high-proof standup to the city for the weekend, covering a variety of topics, including the aforementioned elixir and its propensity for instigating debauchery. (McCourt)

8 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. (also Sat/13) , $35.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

DANCE

ODC/Dance


How many modern dance companies do you know with two in-house choreographers? These ensembles usually swim an eclectic rep or feature the work of a single artist. ODC/Dance is very much the exception because of KT Nelson and Brenda Way, two dance-makers who couldn’t be more different in terms of style, artistic temperament, musicality, and sources of inspiration. Every season offers at least one new piece from each. This year, Way is working with composer/performer Pamela Z on Waving Not Drowning (A Guide to Elegance), a response to a 1963 manual on etiquette. Nelson turns to Mozart’s glorious Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor for Labor of Love, in which she explores what she calls "committed adult love" — the stresses and joys experienced by couples in relationships. (Felciano)

March 12/ 7 p.m. (through March 28), $15–$45

Novellus Theater

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-ARTS

www.odcdance.org

SATURDAY 13th

COMEDY

Martin Lawrence


Damn, Gina! Even if he’s fallen off your radar after donning the "Eddie Murphy fat suit" in Big Momma’s House (2000), you have fond memories of Martin Lawrence from such early comedic ventures as the TV series Martin, the host of HBO’s Def Comedy Jam or the tabloid field-day "Running Down Ventura Boulevard Yelling at Cars." In 2010, Lawrence is taking a break from film and returning to his roots with a stand-up tour, where his manic delivery really has room to breathe. Though he often finds himself an easy target, there is no doubt Lawrence is a huge star and these tickets are going to sell out — so get to steppin’! (Galvin)

8 p.m. (also Sun/14), $42.75–$77.50

Paramount Theatre

2025 Broadway, Oakl.

(510) 465-6400

www.paramounttheatre.com

MUSIC

E.C. Scott


E.C. Scott works a crowd, inciting laughter and tears. Atlantic Records’ cofounder Jerry Wexler praised her as "one honest-to-God soul singer." She’s become a major staple in the blues circuit in the Bay Area and beyond. Scott grew up singing in St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church in Oakland and cites gospel as a major influence. She’s shared the stage with Lou Rawls, Ray Charles, Patti Labelle, and John Lee Hooker, and in 1994, signed a multirecord deal with Blind Pig Records that resulted in a Downbeat award and W.C. Handy nomination for Soul/Blues Female Artist of the Year. (Lilan Kane)

8 p.m., $20

401 Mason, SF.

(415) 292-2583

www.biscuitsandblues.com

MUSIC

Youth Brigade


Formed by brothers Adam, Mark, and Shawn Stern in 1980, Youth Brigade made its mark on the early California punk scene with empowering anthems like "Fight to Unite" and DIY action. The trio started the Better Youth Organization to promote shows and put out records for themselves and their friends’ bands. Thirty years later, the group still plays with raw, rebellious energy and spirit. The sprawling new box set Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records chronicles their efforts. (McCourt)

9 p.m., $18

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

SUNDAY 14th

MUSIC

Scarlett Fever


Local fans of punk, rockabilly, hot rods, burlesque, and more join together today for a very special cause — the annual "Scarlett Fever" show, an all-day benefit for Scarlett James, teenage daughter of Rosa and Bob James, who suffers from Rett syndrome, a childhood neurodevelopmental disorder that leads to the loss of many motor skills. The annual event helps pay for her care and raises money for research into the disorder. Her father is a veteran musician (playing in Del Bombers) and each year has enlisted the help of some stellar talent. Today’s event includes Big Sandy and the Fly Rite Boys, Three Bad Jacks, Stigma 13, Ghost Town Hangmen, plus live burlesque — courtesy of Hubba Hubba Revue — and raffles, including one for a new custom motorcycle. (McCourt)

1 p.m., $15

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

TUESDAY 16th

FILM

Remembering Playland at the Beach


If you haven’t yet met Laffing Sal, it’s time for you to take a trip to (dreaded) Fisherman’s Wharf and the (free) Musée Mécanique. As every self-respecting San Franciscan knows, Sal once presided over the Funhouse at Playland at the Beach, an amusement park along Ocean Beach that had its heyday in the 1910s and ’20s (but didn’t close until 1972). The most famous film to feature Sal’s terrifying cackle is 1948’s The Lady From Shanghai — but no doubt you’ll get an earful in Tom Wyrsch’s brand-new doc, Remembering Playland at the Beach, which is stuffed with archival footage, photographs, and interviews. Appropriately, the film debuts at the Balboa, just blocks from the former site of Playland’s famous midway. (Cheryl Eddy)

7 and 9:15 p.m., $6.50–$9

Balboa Theatre

3630 Balboa, SF

(415) 221-3117

www.balboamovies.com

FILM

Palestine Cinema: A Shorts Program


The Red Vic has partnered with the Arab Film Festival for a tempting "second look" at a series of short works by a new and international generation of Palestinian filmmakers, originally screened as part of AFF 2009. Topping the lineup is Riyad Deis’ Swesh Swesh, set during the Arab Revolt in Palestine in 1936–39, as a farming family reluctantly harbors a revolutionary fugitive and finds its traditional beliefs challenged in the resulting exchange. The one-night-only program also includes Lesh Sabreen by Bay Area–trained Muayad Alayan (and shot by SF filmmaker Christian Bruno). It focuses on a young couple trapped, literally, between the wall of Israeli occupation and their families’ own conservative mores. (Robert Avila)

7:15 and 9:15 p.m., $6-9

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. We cannot guarantee the return of photos, but enclosing an SASE helps. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Appetite: Taking vodka to the next level

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Appetite: Taking vodka to the next level

On February 22, 42 Below Cocktail Competition at the Regency Center was nicely spread out in two large rooms, plenty of space to taste and view bartenders make New Zealand vodka creations. Some of our best local talent competed to go to nationals, which take place in NYC, then on to finals which happen in 42 Below‘s native land, New Zealand.

It takes skill to bring layers of flavor out of vodka and this group delivered. Certainly, there were other spirits mixed in and some real creativity set to a rowdy, live rockabilly/punk band. Congrats to the two winners: Michael Callahan of Gitane, created a fresh, aperitif-like concoction using, among other things, lemon and fennel root. Josh Harris, of 15 Romolo, once again pulled a win with his nuanced “Bridge to Terabithia” (loved that book as a kid), which contained everything from his own fennel syrup to 42 Below’s Kiwi Vodka, dusted with masala chai.

Josh Harris goes for the win. Photo by Virginia Miller.

I loved straight-from-the-orchard apple freshness of Spruce’s Brandon Clements’ cocktail – his answer (or welcome antidote?) to Apple-tini requests. I commend the use of cherry jalapenos in Chase Williamson’s (of 21st Amendment) Wha Rua (“42″ in Maori).

My favorite was also the biggest adventure: Tavern at Lark Creek’s Joseph Parrilli’s Waggle Dance (name inspired by bee action) is a floral/sweet creation of vodka, Fever Tree ginger beer, wildflower bitters, Wedderspoon Manuka raw honey, topped with sugar-crusted, gold-dusted bees. Yes, bumble bees (stinger removed). I dove right in an ate one. Cute, crunchy, without much flavor, it’s kind of like eating a grasshopper, like I’ve had in Southeast Asia.

8th Annual Best Bartender in the Bay

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8th Annual Best Bartender in the Bay

Calling all Barflies, beer drinkers, highballers, and aficionados of the fine drink!!
It’s time to shine the spotlight on those who keeps us hydrated.  Vote for your favorite bartenders (and their venues) in the categories listed below.
1.    Craziest Bartender
2.    Bartender with the Best Cocktail – Include name of cocktail
3.    Sexiest Male Bartender
4.    Sexiest Female Bartender
5.    Best Shrink Behind the Bar
6.    Funniest Bartender (AKA The Godfrey*)
7.    Crankiest Bartender
The Bay Area’s favorites will be featured in Scene: The Guardian Guide to Nightlife and Glamour, coming March 24th!
*Named after our 1st bartender hall of fame inductee, three-time winner Meredith Godrey of the Horseshoe Tavern.

To vote email your favorite bartenders to promos@sfbg.com by 6pm on March 16th, subject “Best Bartender”.

Specchio

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Specchio

paulr@sfbg.com

Success brings penalties as well as rewards, and if you are a successful cuisine in America, one of the penalties involves banality. Banality is the essence of mass culture. You are Italian food and everybody loves you, but Chef Boyardee puts you in a can and sells you from Wal-Mart shelves, and (just a bit higher up the shame scale) you can find yourself being dished out in hackneyed versions in hackneyed settings, squishy cannelloni in bland Bolognese sauce at quaint spots with tabletop candles set in empty bottles of cheap Chianti.

Yet there’s much to be said for the tried-and-true. Europe might be the Old World, but it also has its ultramodern dimensions. In my observations, the resolution of old and new has generally meant that the latter is fitted gracefully into the former, another piece of a puzzle being forever assembled. The American way is to raze whole blockfuls of hideous, shoddy buildings so a new generation of hideous, shoddy buildings can replace them. The past in America is as disposable as everything else, from razor blades to auto workers.

Specchio is a newish Italian restaurant in America (in our very own San Francisco, in fact), but it has the Euro-modern feel of a glam place in Milan or Barcelona. The embrace of the new is fervent and obvious; the name means “mirror,” with an implication of a dusty article you might find atop Granny’s chest of drawers, but Specchio’s interior design doesn’t emphasize mirrors and certainly not dust. There are, instead, textured concrete walls, concrete floors, a gleaming stainless-steel exhibition kitchen at the rear of the soaring main dining area, and spare furniture of a post-Bauhaus flavor. It is the sort of setting you would expect to be deafening even without people in it, but the noise, while not inconsiderable, is surprisingly well-managed. In this respect Specchio resembles Delfina.

The au courant setting does not quite prepare one for chef Gino Assaf’s poised, traditional menu. (Assaf grew up in Venice and was the chef at Gondola in North Beach for several years.) It’s the photographic-negative, or mirror, effect: a reversal, with the old as an inlay on the new. It has been many years, for instance, since I last tasted vitello al tonno — veal topped with tuna sauce, as classic an Italian dish in its way as spaghetti with meat balls — and that version had been made (with scaloppini-style cutlets) by a home-schooled Italian friend. Specchio’s version (part of a $48 prix-fixe) featured slow-roasted veal in thin slices, almost like carpaccio or bresaolo; these were laid like mats on a wide plate and topped with the creamy, caper-sharpened tuna sauce, pipings of crème fraiche, plenty of lemon, and a small garden of arugula leaves.

More thin-sliced flesh: salmon carpaccio (also a prix-fixe item), scattered with shreds of fennel root and green peppercorns and dressed with a lemon vinaigrette. This version was visually more arresting than the traditional beef interpretation — translucent orange salmon flesh trumping opaque red meat — but the overall flavor effect was less rich and tangy.

Lobster is overrated and problematic, and (for me) the less that’s done to and with it, the better. The flesh is best when plucked right from the shell, swabbed with a bit of butter, and eaten. So lobster ravioli in a lobster bisque sauce (again, prix-fixe) sounded as if it might be overwrought. It wasn’t. The meat inside the pasta pockets remained sweet and firm, with its distinctive tactility, while the creamy sauce was intense with crustacean essence. For a bit of color, the kitchen added asparagus coins.

Swordfish, as the meatiest of fish, needs no introduction and very little help — just some tabs of braised leek and grapefruit sections, say, atop a grilled steak (prix-fixe), itself seated atop a bed of roasted potato, zucchini, and red bell pepper. The leek and grapefruit made an unexpected and appealing combination: a fruity sharpness with an undertone of earth.

Complaining about tiramisù is almost as cliché as tiramisù itself, so I am pleased to report that Specchio’s tiramisù was as good as could be: moist but not soggy, with a nice balance between the competing charges of espresso and liquor. (The great weakness of tiramisù is too much booze, which leads to sogginess and drunk-breath.) Equally impressive, in the Italian tradition of classic simplicity, was a pat of lightly sweetened ricotta cheese topped with a syrupy strawberry reduction that was more fruit than sweet. It was like a small piece of cheesecake, with no crust. Is there a Chef Boyardee take on this? I hope not.

SPECCHIO

Dinner: Tues.–Thurs., Sun., 5:30–10:30 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat., 5:30–11 p.m.

2331 Mission, SF

(415) 958-5528

www.ristorantespecchio.com

Wine and beer,

AE/DS/MC/V

Well-managed noise

Wheelchair accessible

 

Let’s all read Sand Paper

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Let’s all read Sand Paper

Charmingly disheveled Adobe Books, strung as it is on the alcoholic’s crucifix known as the cross-section of 16th and Valencia, has become a beloved sanctuary for readers, drunkards, and occasionally homeless individuals alike. I always look forward to Adobe Books’ events because you can never predict who among the circus just outside will enter and join the fun. Not many bookstores on this dry earth permit customers to imbibe openly from brown bags of Colt 45 during poetry readings. Adobe Books’ Dickensian squalor places it fondly in my heart even as its floorboards sink beneath the weight of dusty overladen bookshelves — and when the smell of stale beer and, somehow, cats, forces me to breathe through my mouth while I peruse.

On Monday, March 1, Adobe Books will host the San Francisco launch party of three new books from Sand Paper Press. It’ll be worth holding my nose to dive in.

Known for featuring and promoting the works of writers associated with Key West Florida, Sand Paper is not as provincial as it may seem. Key West is like Iowa City in that both localities are marked by a disproportionately high writers-to-population ratio. Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, Tennessee Williams, and Earnest Hemingway have all served as pro tem Floridians. This upcoming Monday, books by Stuart Krimko, Shawn Vendor, and Arlo Haskell will be presented and read at Adobe.

Stuart Krimko, currently based in Los Angeles, is the author of The Sweetness of Herbert, a collection of poems loosely inspired by the works of Welsh poet George Herbert (1593-1633). Herbert was remembered for his fancifully monastic poems about the existence of God, and his influence is most evident in lines by Krimko like “(As God in the form of a nauseous wave cast Jonah out.)/ That’s what aggressive living is about.” Readers should note that the collection’s title is intentionally misleading; Herbert’s allusion is tangentially related to a work that is richly imbued with Krimko’s own personality.

Key West poet Arlo Haskell’s collection Joker is lovely. John Ashbery once commented that Haskell’s poems “conjure an ambiance as temperate and welcoming as ocean air.” Ashbery was correct in the sense that Haskell’s poems have a flowing and pellucid quality to them, best seen in phrases like “Imagination is our hard respite/ and the birds in the trees are one of a kind: loneliness./ Our law, like love and lust, is liquid”. However, Haskell’s work is not always temperate nor welcoming; they are frequently political and incisive. Despite Haskell’s aptitude for a pretty turn of phrase, he is not afraid to stir the water. Nor is he apprehensive in revealing what lies beneath.

Along with Haskell and Krimko, young writer Shawn Vandor will also be at Adobe, reading from his collection of stories Fire at the End of the Rainbow.

Sand Paper Press launch party
Mon/1, 7pm, free
Adobe Books
3166 16th Street, SF.
www.myspace.com/adobebooks

Going Rogue

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Going Rogue

By Robyn Johnson

The second decade of the millennium has ushered in some upheavals, and whether they’re for the better or worse it’s hard to say. Tea Partiers are the new Republicans. Doughnuts are the new cupcakes. And now, beer is the new wine.

I recently attended the increasingly popular SF Beer Week, specifically the “A Taste of the Rogue Nation” event at the Rogue Ale Pub House, featuring a delightful cornucopia of their popular brews. Beer sommelier Sheana Davis of the Epicurean Connection elevated the status of the tasting from a mere beer bust to a frou-frou gourmet gathering with her artfully chosen pairings of artisan cheeses and chocolates. Although a little under a dozen samples were served, the following are the highlights — and what I could mostly remember to take notes on after several drinks. (Like true beer badasses, we did not expectorate.)
The tasting started off with Dirtoir Black Lager. Obsidian in color, it looked like coffee, it smelled like coffee, and it tasted like… coffee-ish beer: dark, roasted, and bitter. It was tasty in itself, but the lager became quite a treat when paired with the sampling of Rouge de Noir Le Petit Dejeuner—a sweet, creamy cheese with a white rind covered in penicillium fungi. Our lovely hostess Sheana told us it was mostly eaten as a morning cheese, which partially explained how well it complemented a coffee-like lager.

The Morimoto Soba Ale was also interesting, at least conceptually. A collaboration between Rogue and Chef Masaharu Morimoto (of Iron Chef fame), the specialty grain ale makes use of buckwheat—the same grain used for the flour of soba noodles. The taste was reminiscent of my favorite cheap beer, Asahi (Don’t kill me, beer aficionados, or Chef Morimoto.) In other words, it was refreshing, crisp, light, and on the dry side. I had a hard time placing the buckwheat nuttiness, though.

Not originally included in our tasting menu, John John Dead Guy Ale snuck in as an additional round. Another collaborative product, it’s comprised of Dead Guy Ale (creative contribution of Rogue Brewmaster John Maier) that has been aged in the leftover barrels of Dead Guy Whiskey (Rogue Spirits Master Distiller John Couchot’s input in the unholy scheme). It was delicate and sweet with the oaky notes of whiskey. To give us a basis of comparison, Double Dead Guy Ale was served immediately afterwards; with twice the normal amount of ingredients, it’s also twice as alcoholic. More bitter and less carbonated, it had a ghost of a caramel flavor.
 
While I did not care for the next round of Yellow Snow IPA, the immediate and bold hop flavor really assaulted my palate (for you hopheads, though, this beer’s for you), it’s worth mentioning because the cheese pairing was manna from heaven. Aged for 8 years, Widmer Cellar’s special cheddar actually develops crystals of condensed cheese, which adds a fun consistency to the concentrated, tangy flavor. It’s really the Übermensch of cheddar.

Finishing as the appropriate crescendo to the evening with rich, deep flavors, the Russian Imperial Stout, paired with Sheana’s espresso cookies, conjured up leather and smoke and the flashing eyes of Ivan the Great as he took to the battlefield against the advancing Mongol horde: earthy and full. I have to point out that at this point my intoxication level was at its peak, perhaps affecting my judgment. But the beer and its pairing were good in the way that dark, strong, and chocolatey foods are good.

All in all, my first foray into the complexities of beer and its relationship to food was edifying, especially in the case of the delicious synergism between the Dirtoir Black Lager and Rouge de Noir Le Petit Dejeuner. The conclusion? A pint glass can replace my wine glass any time.

Rogue Ales Public House

673 Union, SF

(415) 362-7880

www.rogue.com

Bin 38

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Bin 38

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE If we agree that the Marina District is a sort of Castro District for heterosexuals — the het ghetto, or hetto — it should follow that food in the neighborhood’s restaurants is something of an afterthought. Restaurant food in the Castro has long been a swamp of mediocrity (though there are signs of improvement), and restaurants in the Marina have likewise tended to be more about convenience, speed, and affordability — like refueling race cars — than an experience in their own right.

At a glance, Bin 38 would seem to conform to this pattern. The restaurant and wine-beer bar occupies a narrow storefront space on a run of Scott Street between Lombard and Chestnut streets already chockablock with eating places pitched to the young. From outside it looks like a typical box, but once you’re inside the door, you find a dodge-and-weave of rectangles: an entryway with host or hostess, a bar with a nest of intimate tables opposite, a passageway, another dining room rich in alcoves, yet another passageway, and a garden. There is a snug, cave-like quality to the layout — it reminded me of a lost beloved, Rendezvous du Monde, which back in the 1990s occupied a similarly burrow-like abode on Bush Street in which splendid food was served.

I could say that Bin 38’s food is as good as Rendezvous du Monde’s. That’s saying something, and it is as good, but what is most immediately notable about the dishes emerging from head chef Matt Brimer’s kitchen is how gorgeously everything is composed and plated. The designs aren’t so fussy that you feel like a Visigoth trashing the treasures of Rome when you start eating them, but they are striking in their combinations of shape, color, and texture. I hesitate to describe food as art, but I hesitate a little less here.

Color is perhaps the most arresting aspect of food that has yet to be eaten, and winter, the bleakest season, offers surprising possibilities to the color-minded chef. Beets, for instance, of gold, ruby, and rose. Bin 38’s roasted-beet salad (part of a $29, three-course prix-fixe) looked like the contents of a jewel box: an array of richly gleaming disks, arranged on mache with dabs of mild, creamy French feta, and scatterings of equally jewel-like pomegranate seeds. The whole thing is dressed with a citronette, basically a vinaigrette made with lemon juice instead of vinegar. The finishing touch was the platter itself, a long narrow rectangle such as might be used for presenting a sushi roll.

Just as colorful was a wide, shallow bowl of hand-cut tagiolini (also a prix-fixe item), ribbons of pasta a little wider than fettucine, tossed with a colorful mélange of spinach, tomato, baby carrot, turnip, and chunks of braised pork, with flavor amendment provided by olio nuovo and square flaps of Parmesan cheese. What was most remarkable about the sauce was the way in which the various ingredients kept their individual identities while managing, at the same time, to become part of a greater whole.

If I mark down the winter salad — again, prix-fixe — a bit, it’s mainly because the color scheme wasn’t quite as intense: Belgian endive (white with hints of green), fennel shreds (white with even fewer hints of green), sprigs of watercress (green but small), sections of blood and mandarin orange (gorgeous), and pink peppercorns (too small to add much visually). The arrangement was appealing, though, with the leaves of endive neatly lined up along the platter like canoes tied up in the marina of a summer camp. Dressing: cherry vinaigrette.

Bin 38 enters the burger derby with the BIN burger ($13), a well-seasoned disk of ground beef enhanced with smoked gouda and mayonnaise, served on an English muffin and presented with a heap of sliced cornichons. You have to order fries separately, which isn’t the worst thing. You might want a small bowl of spiced nuts ($3) instead — better for you — though they’re at least as sweet as spicy. Or you might want neither, if you opened with wild Gulf prawns ($12), served sizzling on a fajitas-like cast-iron platter with chile arbol oil, very spicy, and garlic, and levain slices for mopping up.

Desserts are also arty. A toasted almond panna cotta arrives as little hemispheres that resemble white-chocolate truffles, topped with chunks of strudel, interspersed with blood-orange segments, and bathed with a reduced hibiscus tea that looks as if it leaked out of a joint of beef. Chocolate pudding cake is distinguished mainly by the pat of brown-butter gelato on the side, tasting rather caramely. Hetto heaven!

BIN 38

Dinner: Mon.–Thurs., 5:30–10:30 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat., 5:30–11 p.m.; Sun., 5:30–9 p.m.

3232 Scott, SF

(415) 567-3838

www.bin38.com

Beer and wine

AE/DS/MC/V

Wheelchair accessible

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