Beer Archives — Page 5 of 61 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Barroom backchannel

Michael Redmond

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March 4, 2014

joe@sfbg.com

Amid the political turmoil in the city around evictions of longtime San Franciscans, tech workers and progressive political activists are beginning to come together to brainstorm ways to address displacement.

Tech workers have started to attend meetings meant to spark conversation between the two opposing groups, hosted by local restaurant Casa Sanchez. Those interviewed by hyperlocal website Mission Local described the dinners as “heavy and charged,” with blame for the housing crisis pointing to all sides.

Last week, Tech Workers Against Displacement Happy Hour was the latest opportunity for the two communities to come together and talk. But can tech workers become effective partners in the search for solutions to the affordable housing crisis? The happy hour was promising, but it exposed some of the obstacles.

The happy hour was partially organized by a politician running for office (Sup. David Campos, who is now running for the California Assembly), but was mostly the brainchild of two unlikely allies: SEIU labor representative Gus Feldman and Rolla Selbak, an employee at a multinational tech giant that she asked us not to name.

And therein lies one of the challenges: Will the well-paid tech workers be willing to rise up and challenge the corporate and capitalist interests that have overheated the local economy and fed the displacement crisis, the very forces that have allowed them to afford skyrocketing local rents?

AWKWARD CONVERSATION

Virgil’s Sea Room was an apt choice for the happy hour. Five months ago and just a few blocks away on 24th Street, hundreds marched in the “Our Mission No Eviction” protest, where 71-year-old Mission muralist Rene Yanez told a tale of an artistic, vibrant Mission District in danger of losing its Latino population and its character.

The night was a mostly positive exercise in bridge-building, though it started under a blanket of tension. Activists spoke of the housing crisis at a microphone to an audience of nearly 200 tech workers and activists. Sparks flew and some left early, unhappy with what they called “activist lecturing.”

At Tech Workers Against Displacement Happy Hour, just starting up. Can tech and activists come together to help SF? pic.twitter.com/nindzM1L3B

— Joe Fitz Rodriguez (@FitzTheReporter) February 26, 2014

But as the empty beer cans grew in number, many tech workers came up to the microphone, and even more still mingled with the housing activists in the crowd. Riders of corporate buses figuratively (and maybe literally) clinked glasses with Erin McElroy, one of the leaders in the Heart of the City protests that have blockaded Google buses.

Yet most tech workers didn’t want to come out of the closet and identify with this nascent movement. Seeing a reporter with a notepad in hand, they shrank away. Those that did speak identified themselves in hushed tones accompanied by furtive glances. One man who identified himself as a tech worker laid down some rockin’ slam poetry at the microphone. When we told him we tweeted his performance, the tall, broad-shouldered techie flew into a panic.

“Please, please, please, you have to delete it. They can’t know I was here,” he told the Guardian, with panic in his eyes and sweat dripping down his forehead. He wasn’t alone in his worry.

One verified Google employee the Guardian initially spoke with on Twitter mingled with activists as well. “We’re not so different, we all want the same thing,” he told us. But even he was adamant that he not be identified.

One software engineer from a rideshare company, Eric Butler, did not want his company named. When asked why he came out to talk to housing activists despite his concern, he said, “The issue of displacement hits everyone.”

In recognition of that, the communities of the Mission and San Francisco that night called for tech workers to advocate for change from the inside, where they carry the most leverage and the most power. But that hasn’t happened yet, at least not publicly.

“They want to talk, but their bosses have ordered them not to,” McElroy told us. “It’s pretty intense.”

The tech workers could be the city’s strongest allies, if only they would challenge their employers and those invested in their companies. Already, a few tech workers are joining in solidarity.

IN BOTH CAMPS

Kelsey Gilmore-Innis lives in the Excelsior District and works at a tech startup. “I’m part of the system,” she told us. But she’s also a San Francisco native.

“My friends are SF native dirtbags who freestyle rap at any party, anywhere,” Gilmore-Innis, 27, said of her San Francisco roots. And like many of us, she had an eviction story to tell.

“We weren’t formally evicted, but were bought out, a precursor to the formal eviction processes. Eventually our whole block in Bernal Heights was replaced,” she said.

Her experience with eviction galvanized her. Though she has one foot in the tech camp, her other foot is firmly in the world of activism.

The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project targets serial real-estate speculators responsible for the evictions of long-term San Franciscans in the effort to make a buck, and in her off hours Gilmore-Innis works side by side with McElroy, the project’s rabble-rousing leader.

To tech workers, that may sound like an Uber employee working side by side with a cabbie. But for Gilmore-Innis, it’s a part of her San Franciscan heritage. She’s proud of one of San Francisco’s rich activist history, speaking fondly of inheriting the legacy of Harry Bridges, leader the historic 1934 General Strike in San Francisco.

She channels activism in a uniquely technological way, gathering campaign finance data for the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, aiming to build a searchable database to track money from shady real estate speculators flowing into San Francisco elections.

It’s public knowledge for public gain, a sentiment tech workers inspired with their fight for net neutrality and internet freedom. But that’s a fight tech workers are familiar with. Eviction may not be in their realm of experience.

“I’ve been evicted and know people who were evicted. I think the grand majority [of tech workers] thinks it’s an abstract plight. It’s not real to them,” she told us.

Maybe she’s right, but not every tech worker is at a billion-dollar corporation. For some in the startup world, displacement is all too personal.

ART AND TECH

Matt Conn was one of the many new tech workers in the city who’s built a startup from the ground up. His former company, Root Music, cashed in big, raising over $20 million and morphing into BandPage. Conn is now CEO and founder of the video game company MidBoss. He and a few others created the first LGBT video game convention, “GaymerX,” which drew national attention from the gaming and mainstream press. Put simply: he’s made it.

But just a few years ago, Conn often slept on BART trains. And no, we’re not talking the occasional nap. This was life.

“I would get on really early in the morning and ride it four or five hours. You get on at Powell and you get a really good nap for $1.50. When I first came out to the West Coast, I knew I wanted to be here. I ran out of money, and it was a cost-effective way to stay in San Francisco,” he told the Guardian.

Now he’s calling out the tech industry’s practices through MidBoss’ new game “Read Only Memories,” a science fiction game featuring a journalist as protagonist who is trying to save a kidnapped friend from a shadowy tech company.

In Conn’s game, cyberpunk future San Francisco will be a frightening free-for-all grab for people’s data, even more so than now. It also features many queer characters throughout, an effort to show a future where the LGBTQ community is accepted in everyday life.

Like many San Franciscan artists before him, his game allegorically challenges the city’s future, showcasing a highly gentrified city from Chinatown to “New Candlestick” — a not too subtle jab at the city’s culture war today.

Conn has been there. He’s lived displacement. Is that why he’ll speak out against tech where others won’t? His answer was different than the one Gillmore-Innis gave us.

GaymerX Presents Read Only Memories, Adventure Game Throwback With Queer Sensibilities pic.twitter.com/tDF6xNZITu

— Eddie Garou (@EddieGarou) November 13, 2013

“It’s a culture that’s very cult-like in a way, where people don’t want to focus on the negative,” he explained. His company is now crowdfunded, but that wasn’t always the case. “At BandPage, we had multiple investors who also represented Netflix and other big names. I had to be careful in public not to knock something one of our investors had a holding in. You don’t want to be ‘that guy.'”

It all goes back to the money, he said.

“For most, like Google, their money came from billionaire and multi-millionaire venture capitalists. No one wants to be the one speaking out against them,” he said.

He may have a point. The powerful venture capitalist Ron Conway, “The Godfather of Silicon Valley,” is ever-present at Mayor Ed Lee’s side. That’s power in the tech world and the municipal one. Maybe it takes a bigger player in the tech industry to “come out,” to inspire tech workers to push for egalitarian values.

CHANGING THE CONVERSATION

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff , head of one of the largest tech companies in the city, echoed sentiments made by every activist who’s ever blocked a Google bus.

“(Speculators) are using the Ellis Act during this unbelievable boom time to toss everyday residents out of their homes,” he said. “I think it’s unfair and I think it has to change. I think these buses — which if you hang out in the Mission, [they come] every five minutes — they’ve got to be massively regulated… (and) we need to get the tech community giving back more aggressively.”

As a native San Franciscan, he has reason to be invested in this place, and reason to call for change. Maybe some will listen. In fact, some of the biggest players may be starting to get the message.

Google’s $6.8 million donation to Free Muni For Youth may stall talks about permanent funding, City Hall insiders told us, but at least its heart seemed to be in the right place. Conway pledged to form working groups that may bring computer coding education into SFUSD schools, though no formal plans have been announced. Last week tech companies joined in the fight for Ellis Act eviction reform on the state level.

One of the organizers of the Tech Workers Against Displacement Happy Hour, Rolla Selbak, said she may host another one just like it, or help someone else do it. The demand is high.

Tech workers and activists expressed ardent interest in another night just like it on the group’s Facebook page. Others wrote into the San Francisco Chronicle to lambast its negative slant to the event, saying the event led to frank and honest discussions.

Though we spoke with her at some length, Selbak encapsulated the night best in a piece she wrote for the Huffington Post the day we went to press.

“By the end of the night, it was very apparent that the imaginary divide between fictional groups had melted, and we all saw each other as simply people, working together to bring change,” she wrote. “A tech worker and an activist walked into a bar… and it was awesome. You should try it, too.”

Courtney Barnett gets droll at the Rickshaw Stop

Steven T. Jones

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February 27, 2014

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Courtney Barnett at the Rickshaw Stop Monday night.

By Sloane Martin

Standing outside the Rickshaw Stop before Courtney Barnett‘s set, I’m watching her chat with her bandmates when one of the girls working merch pops out to let Barnett know that they’ve run out of everything — shirts, albums, posters. “Oh, hang on,” Barnett cries. “I think we have a couple more t-shirts in the car!” And she’s off, grabbing the minivan keys from her drummer so she can dig out something to sell to San Francisco. Despite the shaggy hair and the tomboy-cool outfit of striped t-shirt, jeans, and Chelsea boots, she genuinely has appreciation for the fans who have come out.

That moment set the right tone for a goofy, humble, and electrically entertaining set on Monday night, one of several sold-out shows kicking off Noisepop 2014. Courtney Barnett (and the Courtney Barnetts, a rhythm section comprised of drummer Dave Mundy and bassist Andrew Loane) is a former bartender from Melbourne, Australia. Her debut album The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas has gained considerable popularity over the past several months, fueled by a lauded performance at CMJ in October 2013. If you weren’t one of the fans lucky enough to grab a copy of the record before it sold out, you’ll have to order one from Barnett herself. The performer started her label, Milk! Records, which she described onstage as “me packing up CDs in my bedroom,” to release her own music as well as that of friends like Jen Cloher and Fraser A. Gorman. New York independent label Mom + Pop Music will release A Sea of Split Peas on CD and vinyl in the US later this year.

Wandering onstage and looking a bit bemused by the crowd’s excitement, Barnett launched into 40 minutes of tight, shredding guitar riffs and droll lyrics. Her eager, energetic drummer and bassist provided a heavy low-end that nearly drowned out some of her funnier moments. Her signature impassive delivery of the drawling line, “Just because you’re older than me / doesn’t mean you have to be so condescending,” on “Out of the Woodwork,” and the opening of “Lance Jr.,” “I masturbated to the songs you wrote / resuscitated all my hopes,” was too enjoyable to be missed. After a slow start, Barnett and her bandmates seemed to loosen up, or maybe wake up, as they’ll finally be headed back to Australia for a much deserved rest after this final US show. All that time on the road made for a tightly rehearsed show, however, as at one point even the headbanging of each band member was perfectly in sync. Once the onstage banter started, it became clear that Barnett comes by her lyrical humor quite naturally, as she assured us that if we missed the chance to buy a t-shirt or a CD, “I’ll hug each and every one of you, and Andy will kiss you, and Dave will sign your chest.”

The crowd of hesitantly spastic dancers seemed not to know quite what to do with the deadpan vocals set against an enthusiastically kinetic rhythm section. Word to the wise: Either bob your head or bounce up and down or choose noodle arms, lest you lose your expensive beer to the floor, as the gentleman next to me did. Hopefully these fans figure out their dance strategies by the time the next record comes out, as the new song Barnett played us midway through her set was a promising sign of consistently fantastic work ahead. As the crowd sang along to “Avant Gardener,” Barnett’s sprawling narrative of an asthma attack suffered in her front garden, it was easy to sympathize with lines like, “Should have stayed in bed today / I much prefer the mundane,” but I, at least, was glad to have gotten out of bed to see her.

Hot! New! Live!

Michael Redmond

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February 25, 2014

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There are a bunch of new openings to cover this week, starting with the new location of ICHI Sushi and NI Bar (3282 Mission, SF. www.ichisushi.com) in Bernal, which is double the size of ICHI’s previous spot — and looking very spiffy. You’ll find a 30-seat sushi counter in the front along with some table seating, plus an omakase counter, which will be reservation only. In the back is the Ni Bar, offering a new menu of izakaya-style dishes and snacks (which includes chef Tim Archuleta’s chicken wings, have you ever had them?), with plenty of sake, shochu, wine, and beer to help get your heat on. Have fun checking out the mural of sushi rules, like don’t use too much soy sauce, if any at all, but you knew that.

Now open in downtown SF is Kin Khao (55 Cyril Magnin, SF. www.kinkhao.com), a 75-seat Thai restaurant in the Parc 55 from Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim fame, with chef de cuisine Michael Gaines (Manresa, Central Kitchen), who has been cooking Thai food with Pim for the past year. Look for authentic dishes made with high-quality and local ingredients and many handmade touches, from the XO sauce to the curries. The menu will make you want to over-order, with dishes like “pretty hot” wings, chilli jam clams with pork belly, chicken fat rice, Dungeness crabmeat and rice noodles in a sauce made with crab fat (yup, more fat!) and seasonal leaf and root vegetables in som sour curry broth with tamarind and fresh red chili. Boom. There’s also a full bar, with cocktails created by the Bon Vivants. Dinner is served nightly 5:30pm–11pm, and lunch is 11am–3:30pm. The bar will open at 5pm for cocktails, and look for late-night bar bites to launch in a few weeks.

There’s a new spot for coffee, café bites, and a rotating schedule of pop-ups at the new Mélange Market (3153 17th St, SF. www.facebook.com/melangemarket) in the ODC building in the Mission. The project is from the AQ team, which includes AQ’s former pastry chef, Maya Erickson. Order your De La Paz coffee along with housemade English muffins for breakfast, while lunch means sandwiches and salads. Fridays has Joshua Wilder Oakley of Tango & Stache popping up with his boozy tacos, like Campari-braised pork belly ones, and salads. Hours are Mon–Fri 8:30am–6pm and Sat 9am–6pm, as well as during ODC performances.

A doughnut pop-up? Uh huh. On Sundays 1pm–6pm, swing by newish bar Beaux (2344 Market, SF.) in the Castro for custom doughnuts by Brian Christie and Reilly Meehan of Bespoke Doughnuts (www.facebook.com/bespokedoughnuts), like lemon and thyme, or another with duck confit, apple, and Roquefort. No, you won’t find chocolate sprinkles, but you will find horchata. And drinks!

It’s almost another month, which means there are even more places to get pizza (the high tide of tomato sauce throughout the city continues). Over in Dogpatch, there’s Long Bridge Pizza Company (2347 Third St, SF. www.longbridgepizza.com), serving a hybrid New York and Neapolitan style, with four options for now: margherita, sausage, a white pie, and pepperoni. Get yourself a small or large, either to go or at one of the tables. Stuff your pie hole. Hours are Mon–Fri 11am–9pm and Sat 12pm–10pm.

And in the Mission, there’s a new and casual joint called Pizza Shop (3104 24th St, SF. 415-824-1840), slinging pies by the slice ($4) or whole ($19, $2 per additional topping). The owner is Thomas Jividen, previously at Bronx Pizza in San Diego, who partnered with Laurie Badger of Golden Boy Pizza (she is running front-of-house operations). Open daily 11am–10pm.

Marcia Gagliardi is the founder of the weekly tablehopper e-column: www.tablehopper.com. Get her app: Tablehopper’s Top Late-Night Eats. On Twitter: @tablehopper.

Gimme 5: Must-see shows this week (Noise Pop edition)

Steven T. Jones

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February 24, 2014

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Gimme 5: Must-see shows this week (Noise Pop edition)

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the festivals of San Francisco. Or something like that. SF Beer Week is over, dear readers, but fret not! It’s the end of February, which is undoubtedly the cruelest month, no matter what T.S. Eliot said, when the darkest days of winter (in places that have that season) are finally over, and the first blossoms of spring are testing their sea legs like so many trepidatious Bambis. In these parts, that means one thing: Noise Pop is upon us.

This the year NP turns 22, so the festival is definitely old enough to hang with the big kids. And there are indeed some big kids in this year’s lineup — Lord Huron, Real Estate, and Dr. Dog, to name a few. But our favorite part about this festival is what it means for up-and-coming Bay Area acts, for whom playing Noise Pop is something of a rite of passage. We’ll be highlighting a few of our favorites over the course of this week, but for now, here are some suggestions for places to show some local pride. As per usual, the tightly-packed schedule presents some tough choices — so yes, we know there are more than five options here. Life’s tough. T.S. Eliot got that one right.

Wed/26

Papercuts and Vetiver @ The Chapel
This is a dreamy package deal if I’ve ever seen one. Papercuts‘ Jason Robert Quever’s melodic, melancholy sighs have never sounded as subtlely polished as on his upcoming album, Life Among the Savages, his first for the brand-new LA-based label Easy Sound Recording Co. Labelmates and fellow San Franciscans Vetiver‘s breezy folk-pop is music for a spur-of-the-moment afternoon drive up the coast. Throw in San Diego opener The Donkeys and you’ve got yourself the sonic landscape of a California we’re in the habit of relegating to car commercials where someone in the passenger seat is grinning and sticking their hand out the window playfully, a California where everyone’s fresh-faced and it never rains. Noise Pop-goers, you can have it all! Especially that last part.
With EDJ, and Vinyl selections by Britt Govea
8pm, $18
The Chapel
777 Valencia, SF
www.thechapelsf.com

(Plan B: Strange Vine/French Cassettes at Bottom of the Hill, or CCR Headcleaner/Skate Laws at Benders)

Thu/27

Jel @ Sparc
Forget the music, watching Jel repeatedly punch drum machine pads and twist sampler knobs on bulky, last-gen machinery would be worth the price of admission. The East Bay-based electronic hip-hop producer manages to keep his appendages intact while stabbing out a dizzying array of kick drums, snares, and percussion in ever-shifting breakbeat arrangements and tempos. On his latest LP, Late Pass (Anticon), Jel balances bass with shoegaze melodies, hints of psychedelia, electric guitar chords and some of his own emceeing. In line with the political undertones throughout the album (“Don’t get comfortable,” the title track advises), this show marks the two-year anniversary of the San Francisco Patient and Resource Center, a medical cannabis nonprofit. — Kevin Lee
7pm, free (RSVP req. for non badge-holders)
Sparc
1256 Mission, SF
www.sparcsf.org

(Plan B: Social Studies, Aan, Farallons, Max and the Moon at the New Parish)

Fri/28

Painted Palms, Dirty Ghosts, Happy Fangs @ Slims
Sure, Cold Cave is technically the headliner, but calling these three local bands supporting acts just seems wrong. SF duo Painted Palms are the darlings du jour of the psych-rock world, for good reason — Forever, released just last month, is one of the most lush, layered debut albums we’ve heard in a while. Dirty Ghosts‘ Allyson Baker is a frontwoman and a half, drawing from punk, blues, experimental rock, and electronica, and the band has promised a new record in 2014, so we wouldn’t be surprised to hear some fresh material. And Happy Fangs, featuring boundless, rough-around-the-edges, sweet n’ salty energy from former members of My First Earthquake and King Loses Crown, will be playing their first show with a live drummer (check back here for a Q&A with them later this week).
7pm, $16
Slim’s
333 11th St, SF
www.slimspresents.com

(Plan B: Soft White Sixties/The She’s at the Chapel, Bleached/Terry Malts at the Rickshaw Stop)

Sat/1

Black Map, Free Salamander Exhibit, Lasher Keen, Happy Diving @ Bottom of the Hill
Yes, there’s a lot going on Saturday night. No, you shouldn’t go see that band you’ve seen a million times before. If you’re in the mood to get super-heavy and excellently weird, this is a solid lineup of newish Bay Area talent running the gamut from Black Map‘s epic, guitar-driven, smart-art-rock-meets-anthemic-metal sound to upstart Happy Diving‘s soft-grunge-leaning, head-bobbing power pop. Lasher Keen’s earthly psychedelia seems to be from another century, you just can’t tell if it’s the future or the past — we’re pretty sure they’d say that’s a good thing. And Free Salamander Exhibit is, of course, the new project from former members of the elaborately theatrical, cultishly loved experimental noise-rock outfit Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Let’s just say you’re not going to be bored.
8pm, $15
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St, SF
www.bottomofthehill.com

(Plan B: Mikal Cronin at the Chapel, Mark Kozelek at Great American Music Hall — look for our feature on the latter in this week’s paper.)

Sun/2

Rogue Wave, Trails and Ways, Wymond Miles @ The Chapel

Oakland’s Rogue Wave set the tone for lo-fi, indie pop-rock way back in the mid-aughts, with an onset of popularity so sudden it seemed unsustainable. Not so — the lineup may change, but the band’s talent for crafting jangly earworms needs no further proving, as of last year’s Nightingale Floors. Trails and Ways, whose members met at Cal, make danceable, Bossa Nova-infused dream-pop that broadens and deepens with repeated listens, but doesn’t take itself overly seriously; oh yeah, they also sing in three languages. And Wymond Miles, still probably best known as the Fresh and Onlys’ guitarist, put out his second solo work late last year — a dense, thoughtfully arranged post-punk gem of a record. Note: This is an afternoon show and, with a bloody Mary on the side, would probably be an excellent hangover soother.
3pm, $20
The Chapel
777 Valencia, SF
www.thechapelsf.com

Sundance, fin: more from the Native Forum

Sue Vaughan

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February 19, 2014

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Sundance, fin: more from the Native Forum

Running into Chris Eyre was easily one of the most exciting moments of this year’s festival. Following his 1998 Audience Award-winning debut, Smoke Signals, Eyre premiered Skins at Sundance 2002, just a few months after 9/11 — and it still ranks as one of the most memorable cinematic experiences I’ve ever had.

After the film, which offers a harrowing look at a sheriff on the Pine Ridge reservation (which is still to this day the poorest in the nation), Park City audiences were dumbfounded as to how to respond. Producer Jon Kilik, who also helped Spike Lee with his ensemble masterpieces Do the Right Thing (1989) and Clockers (1995) was on hand with director Eyre as they plowed through us progressive pit fallers at Sundance. “We are all responsible.” Eyre’s words are still stuck in my head.

Other than directing a couple of Friday Night Lights episodes and a few TV movies, Eyre has since had difficulty getting features financed. Make sure to track down his stunning 40-minute A Thousand Roads (2005), created for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. It showcases a harrowing score by Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard.

And so the baton seems to have been passed to 34-year-old Oklahoma-based Sterlin Harjo, who read a segment from Hal Ashby’s Bound To Glory (1976), an ode to folk pioneer Woody Guthrie, at the Native Forum anniversary celebration. It perfectly connected his regional stories to a larger context.

Harjo’s third feature, documentary This May Be the Last Time (US) is a historian’s as well as musicologist’s dream, as Harjo attempts to uncover his grandfather’s disappearance in 1962. As he traces the origins of the Seminole songs that he grew up with, he learns that his tribe’s singing style is tied to traditions that originated in Scotland, Appalachia, and the experiences of enslaved African Americans.

With a film that plays out similarly to Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching For Sugar Man (2012), Harjo has constructed a deeply moving personal documentary that transcends the region, and can connect to anyone interested in our country’s complicated colonialism.

I was able to track Sterlin Harjo down post-fest for a quick interview, and he’s as thoughtful and as passionate as his films suggest. Smoke Signals and Jim Jarmusch’s acid-western Dead Man (1995) both came out at the perfect time to open Harjo’s eyes to filmmaking as a possible career.

“Jarmusch did such a wonderful job with Dead Man, even better than some Native filmmakers. The language, the wardrobe, the regions, it was all so well researched. And the film isn’t about an Indian; it’s about a human who’s complicated, with a dark side and a lighter side,” he said. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma in 1998, Harjo found that he had to leave home to begin reflecting on his own part of the country.

After completing the Sundance Lab and Native Forum through the Sundance Institute, Harjo made his debut feature, Four Sheets to the Wind (2007), a terrific hipster comedy about a twenty-something who takes a trip to visit his sister off the reservation. “The film is a reactionary Native film to the reactionary Native films that I grew up with. I wanted to contradict the newly formed stereotypes from within the community. No one was going to walk around talking about ‘being an Indian,’ because that didn’t happen in my world. There’s an integrated relationship with a white woman and no one was going to comment on it. Indians were going to drink beer and smoke pot and it wasn’t going to be an issue.”

Though star Tamara Podemski won an Independant Spirit Award nomination as well as a Special Jury Prize at Sundance for her “fully realized physical and emotional turn,” the film ran into categorical problems from distributors. “There were supposedly three-hour meetings about how the film was ‘too Indian’ as well as ‘not Native enough’,” he recalled.

And here lies perhaps the biggest problem with second-generation Native/Indigenous cinema; Who wants to watch these films? Harjo’s follow-up, 2009’s Barking Water, which premiered at Sundance, spotlights a powerhouse performance by Richard Ray Whitman as a man dying of cancer trying to get back home.

With shades of David Lynch’s The Straight Story (1999), this poignant piece engages the viewer thoroughly through the struggles of generation gaps in our contemporary culture. And all the while, it exposes Oklahoma’s quiet and even “magical” ambiance, according to Harjo.

“It’s true, all of my films are centered around ‘Home’. That’s ‘Home’ with a capital H because growing up, displacement was a constant subject taught to us. The Trail of Tears seems to still be affecting us to this day. And so ‘Home’ is sacred and part of our mythology yet we are aware of it often feeling temporary. Funny enough, my next film Chief (which is a term used for homeless Natives) is centered around the loss of home when a man is forced to head to Tulsa, where he becomes homeless and finds himself in the middle of the city’s homeless population. You could call it a poetic thriller.”

Harjo is exactly the type of filmmaker I hope to uncover at film festivals: his work is thought-provoking, passionate, and energized. It’s now up to us to seek out and watch his films so that we don’t read about him 30 years from now and ponder “it’s too bad those second-generation filmmakers didn’t make more cinema.”

Up next: SLAMDANCE!

This Week’s Picks: February 19 – 25, 2014

Michael Redmond

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February 18, 2014

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WEDNESDAY 19

Delivery (SFIndieFest)

Remember 1999, before reality TV exploded all over our pop culture consciousness? Before you found yourself wondering “Why do I know what Kim Kardashian ate for breakfast?” That year, The Blair Witch Project broke new ground by scaring our pants off using found footage; by the time the fifth installment of Paranormal Activity rolled around, it seemed there were several nails in that genre’s coffin. Not so fast: Delivery takes on our obsession with reality shows with a nod to Rosemary’s Baby (1968), following a young couple who, in trying to have their first child, get selected for a reality show. All’s well, until a series of events portrayed through “un-aired reality footage” leads mom to believe her unborn child is possessed by something angry. Bonus: If you’re not ready for kids, this film can serve as a great reminder to use protection. (Emma Silvers)

7pm, $12

New Parkway

474 24th St., Oakl.

www.sfindie.com

THURSDAY 20

The Thermals

Most artists shun pigeonholing and categorization of their work, but the Thermals are a self-described post-pop-punk band out of Portland (pre-Portlandia Portland, they’d like to note). Though the trio has existed for over 10 years, released six studio albums (the first of which was recorded for a whopping $60), and bounced around an amazing roster of highly respected indie labels (Sub Pop, Kill Rock Stars, and now Saddle Creek), the Thermals are still charmingly under-the-radar. Their disarming lo-fi sound, Northwestern flannel fuzz, and hooky sensibility are deserving of a larger audience, so there’s something very fortunate about getting to see them in such an intimate setting as the Chapel. (Haley Zaremba)

With Colleen Green

9pm, $17

Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

Manowar

New York metal pioneers Manowar have been blasting stages since 1980, making a name for themselves with over-the-top volume levels — the Guinness Book of World Records recognized the band for having the loudest live performance on record in the mid-1980s — and sweeping musical epics that feature lyrics with sword and sorcery themes. Adding to the grand scale and image of the band, it was among the first metal groups to record with an orchestra and choir, and has even had the occasional guest narrator tell tales over its music, including legendary actors Orson Welles and Christopher Lee. Mere mortals may want to bring their earplugs for these “Sons of Odin”! (Sean McCourt)

8 pm, $75-$100

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com

Bitchslap!

If you’re still laboring under the illusion that men are always funnier than women, get ready for a big slap in the face. Once a month, the city’s funniest ladies come together for a night of stand-up at the Mission holdout Esta Noche. Bay Area comics Eloisa Bravo and Kimberly Rose Wendt started Bitchslap! about a year ago, in protest of the stereotype that women aren’t funny. Since then, Bitchslap! has gained both male and female fans, creating a nonsexist environment for women performers. Bravo hosts the show and Rose Wendt performs alongside the all-female lineup. (Laura B. Childs)

8pm, free

Esta Noche Nightclub

3079 16th St, SF

www.thebitchslapcomedy.com

FRIDAY 21

Smuin Ballet’s XXperiments Choreography Showcase

In modern/postmodern companies the collaborative process has become pretty much the norm. That’s why, in the programs, choreographers often acknowledge that “the work was created in collaboration with the dancers.” Ballet companies, for the most part, are a different breed: The choreographer brings the material to the studio and the dancers learn it. Yet many ballet dancers also want to choreograph. How will they learn? At Smuin Ballet, they do. XXperiments Choreography Showcase offers an evening of premieres by Smuin dancers set to music, lighting design, and more by their colleagues. The company has 17 dancers; 10 of them will be part of this program: Darrin Anderson, Erica Chipp, Aidan DeYoung, Jonathan Dummar, Nicole Haskins, Weston Krukow, Ben Needham-Wood, Jane Rehm, Susan Roemer, and Christian Squires. (Rita Felciano)

7:30pm, $30

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

415-863-9834

www.SmuinBallet.org

SF Bay Guardian’s 25th Annual Goldies Awards

Whoever first said that “all that glitters isn’t gold” clearly hadn’t been to a Bay Guardian party. We’re going big — and sparkly — for this awards ceremony, which celebrates our hometown movers and shakers in music, visual art, performance, and more (the gold in Goldies stands for Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery). And, much like the Vanity Fair party after the Oscars, the real fun begins after the last award has been awarded, with music from DJs Primo Pitino and Wam Bam Ashleyanne and all-you-can-drink Lagunitas beer — all in the name of raising money for the worthy arts organization CounterPULSE. Don’t forget to wear your glitteriest gold attire: Under the Golden Gate will be snapping photos on the (actual) red carpet. Our fashion critics are kinder than Joan Rivers, we promise. (Emma Silvers)

8pm, $10

Folsom Street Foundry

1425 Folsom, SF

www.folsomstreetfoundry.com

Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa

If Nelson Mandela and mind-numbing Vuvuzelas are your only points of reference when it comes to South Africa, head over to the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts for a little education. The museum’s newest exhibit explores interpersonal relationships, encounters, and exchange in South Africa through the eyes of 25 contemporary artists. In collaboration with SFMOMA, YBCA presents an expansive collection of mixed-media projects, including photography, painting, sculpture, printmaking, graphic design, and performance. Coinciding with South Africa’s 20th anniversary of democracy, Public Intimacy promises to reveal an unexpected perspective of everyday life in the Rainbow Nation. (Childs)

Opening reception 8pm, $12

Through June 28

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

www.ybca.org

SATURDAY 22

We Were Promised Jetpacks

Scotland’s We Were Promised Jetpacks may have an impossibly cute backstory — their first concert was at their school’s battle of the bands — but the group’s music refuses to be taken lightly. Marked by cymbal crashes, epic builds, serious brogue, and some Ian Curtis-level melancholy, the band’s two records provide a visceral listening experience. We Were Promised Jetpacks has matured a bit since their powerful debut record, These Four Walls, which they recorded in just eight days. For their follow-up, the band traveled to Iceland to record in Sigur Rós’ studio, and the result is an accordingly aching and beautiful record. The catharsis of the band’s recorded material is not lost in its notoriously powerful live presence. (Zaremba)

With Honeyblood

9pm, $20

Bimbo’s 365

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

Hidden Cities

Think you know everything about San Francisco? Think again. The newest exhibition at SOMArts will have you completely rethinking the urban space you call home. Hidden Cities features 26 interactive images and installations that unearth forgotten or unseen social, environmental, and racial justice issues in the city. Many projects focus on human waste, like Christian Cerrito’s animatronic, belching metal trashcans and Yulia Pinksevich’s LED light display made from salvaged materials from San Francisco’s Recology landfill. You won’t want to miss the exhibit’s opening reception for two reasons: 1) An energetic parkour demonstration, featuring practitioners interacting with the city’s architecture, and 2) a chocolate cake with printed locations of sewage plants designed by one of the activist-artists will be served. Yum, chocolate sewers! (Laura)

6pm, free

SOMArts

934 Brannan, SF

www.somarts.com

SUNDAY 23

Tom Mallon Memorial

Beginning in the mid-1970s, Tom Mallon had a huge influence and incredibly important impact on the independent San Francisco music scene, both as a performer — he played with American Music Club and Toiling Midgets, among others — and as a producer and engineer. Providing low-cost studio time and guidance, Mallon helped document the work of countless artists, ranging from Chris Isaak to Chuck Prophet. Unfortunately, Mallon passed away last month due to complications from a brain tumor. But his legacy lives on, and at this memorial a variety of people he worked with will come together to play a special show in tribute to him. (Sean McCourt)

4pm, free

Make Out Room

3225 22nd St, SF

(415) 647-2888

www.makeoutroom.com

MONDAY 24

Courtney Barnett

Somewhere in drunkenly rocking Dylan-esque narrative of “History Eraser” — among deserving references to the Stones, Ezra Pound, and (I think) Tenacious D — there’s a reminder “that nothing really ever is exactly as it seems.” That’s good advice coming from Melbourne’s Courtney Barnett, on her collection The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas. The songwriter has a knack for recounting relatable situations and even mundane experiences as extraordinary songs. Take the psychedlic-guitar fueled “Avant Gardener,” in which an asthma attack has the gravity of a bad acid-cum-hospital trip, leaving the singer feeling like “Uma Thurman post over-dosing kick-start.” The result is an album that has all the playful wit of The Moldy Peaches with the earnestness of Sharon Van Etten. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Fever the Ghost, KINS, Rich Girls

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

TUESDAY/25

Noise Pop Opening Night Party

It just keeps on growin’. The Noise Pop music festival, now in its 21st year, is one of the Bay Area’s most beloved live music traditions, featuring a reliably excellent lineup of both local and national buzz-worthy bands. New this year: a festival headquarters — a physical center for all things Noise Poppy — and that’s where the week’s rocking will be kicked off, with “Punk Rock Fancy,” featuring DJ sets by local treasure, punk icon, and Noise Pop godfather Bob Mould, West Coast punk godfather Jello Biafra, and artist-activist Shepard Fairey. For a Tuesday show timed for happy hour, you could do a lot worse. And judging by the lines at last year’s parties, you’ll be in good (or at least very party-ready) company. (Silvers)

5:30pm, free

The NWBLK

1999 Bryant, SF

www.noisepop.com

Rep Clock: February 19 – 25, 2014

Michael Redmond

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February 18, 2014

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Schedules are for Wed/19-Tue/25 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $5-10. San Francisco Cinematheque presents: “The Cinema of Narcisa Hirsch,” Wed, 7:30. Other Cinema presents collaged, remixed, and found films by Soda Jerk, Stacey Steer, Robert Todd, and others, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $7.50-10. “Popcorn Palace:” Shrek 2 (Vernon and Asbury, 2004), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids. “Balboa Theatre’s 88th Birthday Party:” The Strongman (Capra, 1926), plus live 1920s music, food, beer, wine, and prizes, Sun, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •Miller’s Crossing (Coen and Coen, 1990), Wed, 7, and Barton Fink (Coen and Coen, 1991), Wed, 9:30. On the Waterfront (Kazan, 1954), Thu, 7, and The Night of the Following Day (Cornfield, 1968), Thu, 9. “Midnites for Maniacs: Kreative Killers Double Bill:” •Clue (Lynn, 1985), Fri, 7:20, and Crimes and Misdemeanors (Allen, 1989), Fri, 9:20. Mary Poppins (Stevenson, 1964), presented sing-along style, Sat-Sun, 2 (also Sat, 7). This event, $10-16; advance tickets at www.ticketweb.com. Saving Mr. Banks (Hancock, 2013), Sun, 6, 8:30. “Nitey Awards 2014,” Mon, 7. This event, $15-75; advance tickets at www.niteyawards.com. Her (Jonze, 2013), Tue, 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. times. “Oscar Nominated Short Films 2014,” call for dates and times. Gloria (Lelio, 2013), call for dates and times. “Mostly British Film Festival:” Love Me Till Monday (Hardy, 2013), Wed, 7; Life’s a Breeze (Daly, 2013), Thu, 7.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. San Francisco Film Society presents: Magic Magic (2013), Thu, 7. With filmmaker Sebastián Silva in person; visit www.sffs.org for more info on Silva’s artist-in-residence events through Feb 28. “Midnight Movies:” The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Sharman, 1975), Sat, midnight. With the Bawdy Caste performing live.

EXPLORATORIUM Pier 15, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. Free with museum admission ($19-25). “Off the Screen: Caroline Martel’s ‘Wavemakers,'” Thu, 7. Filmmaker in person with post-screening Ondes Martenot demonstration.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Villains We Love:” The Stranger (Welles, 1946), Fri, 6.

NOURSE THEATER 275 Hayes, SF; www.cityarts.net. Free. “Remembering Philip Seymour Hoffman,” screenings of nine Hoffman films, Sat, 10am; Sun, noon. Check www.cityarts.net for complete schedule.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Film 50: History of Cinema:” Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941), with lecture by Emily Carpenter, Wed, 3:10. “Committed Cinema: Tony Buba:” Lightning Over Braddock: A Rustbowl Fantasy (Buba, 1988), Wed, 7; We Are Alive! The Fight to Save Braddock Hospital (Buba and Dubensky, 2013), Thu, 7. “Against the Law: The Crime Films of Anthony Mann:” He Walked By Night (1949), Fri, 7; Border Incident (1949), Fri, 8:40. “Funny Ha-Ha: The Genius of American Comedy, 1930-1959:” Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959), Sat, 6. “Jean-Luc Godard: Expect Everything from Cinema:” Band of Outsiders (1964), Sat, 8:20; “Godard’s Early Shorts,” Sun, 5. “The Brilliance of Satyajit Ray:” The Expedition (1962), Sun, 2. “Documentary Voices:” May They Rest in Revolt (George, 2010), Tue, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. SF IndieFest, through Thu. For program info, visit www.sfindie.com. Love & Air Sex (Poyser, 2014), Feb 21-27, call for times. “Roxie’s Future Filmmakers Program: TILT,” Sat, noon. Short films by young filmmakers.

TANNERY 708 Gilman, Berk; berkeleyundergroundfilms.blogspot.com. Donations accepted. “Berkeley Underground Film Society:” “LOOP Presents:” “Old School, New Light:” •This is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message (1967), and At Home, 2001 (1967), Sat, 7:30; Annie Hall (Allen, 1977), Sun, 7:30.

VICTORIA THEATRE 2961 16th St, SF; www.wearebatman.com. $8.50-11. Legends of the Knight (Culp, 2014 ), Fri, 7:30.

VOGUE 3290 Sacramento, SF; www.mostlybritish.org. $12.50. “Mostly British Film Festival,” 25 classic and new films from the UK, Ireland, Australia, and India, through Thu. “SF Jewish Film Festival Winter Fest:” It Happened in St. Tropez (Thompson, 2013), Sun, noon; Cupcakes (Fox, 2013), Sun, 2:30; Bethlehem (Adler, 2013), Sun, 4:30; A Short History of Decay (Maren, 2013), Sun, 6:40; S#x Acts (Gurfinkel, 2013), Sun, 8:40. Passes ($30-40) and more info at www.sfjff.org. *

Trunk show: Anchor launches its new IPA

Sue Vaughan

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February 12, 2014

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Read Sam Devine’s story on Anchor’s planned waterfront brewery in this week’s paper.

Last week, Anchor Brewing and Distilling launched an IPA to much fanfare at their Mariposa Street brewery. Initially, one may be surprised that Anchor has joined the frenzy of hoppy West Coast beers. But this is not the first IPA it has released. Originally brewed in 1975, its Liberty Ale was the first IPA to be brewed on the West Coast after Prohibition.

So Anchor is not just hopping on the bandwagon. It’s getting back on the wagon that they hopped in the first place — with Cascade hops, and while experimenting with dry-hopping methods.

The new Anchor IPA has a rich copper color and a sweet, hoppy aroma. Mildy bitter to taste, it has a good burst of hop flavor and a grainy, malty back end. It finishes crisp-to-dry and does not have the lingering grapefruit that many an IPA offers. All in all, it’s a well-balanced, easy to drink beverage.

The release party was quite a shindig, cramming a happy throng amidst the copper kettles and in the tap room. “Passport Stations” were set up along the way as a sort of parlor game, educating the crowd on the beer’s rich history and explaining the use of the elephant on the new beer label.

The first kiosk asked party-goers to devise which statement was false: a) IPA stands for India Pale Ale, b) IPAs became popular in the 18th century, c) Production of IPAs expanded with exportation to India.

The answer is b)! India Pale Ales became popular in the 19th century through shipments to that faraway place where elephants roamed.

The next station featured bowls of the of six varieties of hops used in the new beer: cascade, Apollo, Citra, Nelson Sauvin, Haas, and Experimental No. 431. “It smells like weed,” said one party-goer holding a handful of little green buds. And it really does.

Another way-point described the antiquated phrase “See the Elephant,” which was a 19th century term for heading toward adventure: “Tom, I’m off to ‘see the elephant.’ Wish me luck.” “You’re a fool, Jones.” “Go fly a kite, Tom!” The phrase was supposedly bandied about quite a bit during the Gold Rush, tying the elephant label neatly in with Anchor’s late 19th century roots.

Last but not least was a station for the Performing Animal Welfare Society. This non-profit advocates against the use of animals for entertainment and maintains wildlife sanctuaries for “rescued performers.” We learned that, sadly — no matter how well an elephant is treated in captivity — controlling and training an animal of that size requires some unpleasant techniques, leaving the animal with an unhappy childhood.

Doin’ all that-there learnin’ was made easier by confections and freely pouring taps. Boccalone, makers of fine cured meats, sliced up “delicious pig parts,” and Three Twins Ice Cream handed out two specially-made ice creams. One was the flavor of IPA and the other tasted of Bock beer. In addition to those treats, the evening’s caterers, Melon’s, had a surprise hit with their grilled-cheese-and-apple sandwiches.

Much of the staff, from CEO, to brewer, to tour guide were on hand. Alas, no show from Fritz Maytag, but he is officially retired now and immersed in his many hobbies — too occupied to bother donning silly hats in a photo booth while imbibing ales… perhaps wisely so.

Going back to Cali

Michael Redmond

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February 11, 2014

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culture@sfbg.com

CHOW NOW

We finally have some gray skies, all the better to contrast the megawatt Technicolor interior of the new Loló (974 Valencia, SF. www.lolosf.com) location on Valencia. The larger digs, now sporting 65 seats, also boast two bars — mezcal lovers won’t want to miss the new nine-seat Agave Bar in the back.

Once you have a drink in your hand (like the Mezcal Mula, with pomegranate-infused tequila, mezcal, ginger beer, and bitters), start taking a closer look at the décor by Lorena Zertuche: Mmm-hmm, those really are men’s suit jackets stitched onto the back of a banquette, and yes, someone did in fact fold 1,000 origami boats for that wall. And no, you didn’t take acid about an hour ago. Then again, maybe you did.

I also love the leather belts stitched down the center of the bench seats, which are in fact pickup truck seats. Beep beep. Some new dishes on Jorge Martínez’s Jaliscan-Californian menu include Dungeness crab croquetas, oyster and pork chin confit sopes, and panko-encrusted avocado tacos. You have plenty of exploring to do. Hours are Mon–Thu 6pm–12am, and Fri–Sat 6pm–1am. Lunch and brunch service will launch in March.

Another opening in the Mission: Prubechu (2847 Mission, SF. www.facebook.com/prubechu) has taken over the former Roxy’s, highlighting traditional recipes from Guam, and of course there will be a California twist on a few dishes — like red rice with pork and broccolini, and golai hagan suni with spigarello, eggplant, sunchokes, turmeric, and coconut. Tue–Sat 5pm–10pm.

Green juice, beer and cheese or onion and potato piroshkis, tasty po’boys, cappuccino, garam masala spice, Beauty’s Bagels, some of the best damn carrot cake you’ve ever had … . The new Second Act Marketplace (1727 Haight, SF. www.secondactsf.com) has you covered. This warren of food stalls opened in the former Red Vic Movie House location, and now contains five individual businesses that are ready to feed and hydrate you. High Cotton Kitchen is the New Orleans-style lunch spot with Sightglass coffee, while Community Craft is a cooperative bakeshop consisting of nine bakers. And then there’s Anda Piroshki, RAW juice bar, and zesty goodies from Spice Hound. Extravaganza!

BALLIN’ ON A BUDGET

When was the last time you saw $1 organic coffee, or a chorizo burger for $8? There are some new folks in the kitchen of New Central Café (301 S. Van Ness, SF. 722-0601), and they want to make sure you’re well fed for $10 or less. You can also pick up a fresh-squeezed juice, and other healthy options, like the quesadilla California: a housemade tortilla stuffed with kale, butternut squash, sautéed onion, refried beans, fried sweet potato, and sour cream. Daily 7am–6pm.

Not far away, Rice Paper Scissors is now serving lunch Mon–Wed 11am–2pm at Brick and Mortar (1710 Mission, SF. www.ricepaperscissors.com). Look for pho, vegan curry, and more. Weekend brunch is coming soon.

Speaking of brunch, the next time you’re taking a Thursday off (way to hit it hard on a Wednesday night, you animal), you can now get your loco moco on at Namu Gaji (499 Dolores, SF. www.namusf.com) which has extended its brunch hours to Wed–Fri 11:30am–4pm and Sat–Sun 10:30am–4pm.

La Urbana (661 Divisadero, SF. www.laurbanasf.com) has a sweet taco Tuesday deal: every Tuesday in the Mercado (Urbana’s garage space next door), you can get two street-style tacos and a beer for $7; with a shot of house mezcal, it’s $10. Tasty trouble, that.

Have you ever had a Fryin’ Maiden or Notorious P.I.G.? If you’ve ordered the stoner comfort food from the Brass Knuckle (www.brassknucklesf.com) truck, then you should be familiar with chef Shellie Kitchen’s fun — and obviously music-inspired — menu. She just opened a brick-and-mortar location in the Tenderloin at 749 Larkin St., so you don’t need to chase the truck down when you want a Snoop Dog for lunch. Or Tots and the Maytals. Heh.

Marcia Gagliardi is the founder of the weekly tablehopper e-column; subscribe for more at www.tablehopper.com. Get her app: Tablehopper’s Top Late-Night Eats. On Twitter: @tablehopper.

This Week’s Picks: February 12 – 18, 2014

Michael Redmond

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February 11, 2014

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WEDNESDAY 12

When The Landscape Is Quiet Again: North Dakota’s Oil Boom

In a land far, far away, the greedy hands of oilmongers are ripping apart Sarah Christianson’s home state. “Almost every local person I spoke with out there expressed some version of this sentiment: ‘I’m so glad so-and-so is dead, so they don’t have to see what’s happened to this place,'” says the photographer. Over the past year, Christianson documented the consequences of North Dakota’s newest oil boom: oil wells built on her parent’s mineral acres, drilling rigs planted on desolate horizons, natural gas flare pits disrupting untouched valleys. Her latest project, “When the Landscape is Quiet Again” hosted by SF Camerawork through April 19, examines the lasting repercussions of North Dakota’s 1973 oil boom, the new damages being inflicted today and the dichotomous effects on this economically depressed region. Opening reception will be held the following day at 6pm. (Laura B. Childs)

Free

SFCamerawork

1011 Market, 2nd floor, SF

www.sfcamerawork.org

Octopalooza

Are you a two-fisted drinker? Think you can keep up with an eight-armed party animal? Tonight’s your chance to do exactly that, and drink like a fish — literally! Head down to the waterfront tonight for “Octopalooza,” an SF Beer Week event celebrating cephalopods that will allow people to eat, drink and dance, all under the water. Featuring beers from San Francisco’s Pacific Brewing Laboratory (with labels such as “Squid Ink” and “Nautilus”) the fete will also include food from Pier 39 restaurants, octopus talks, squid dissections, squid ink block printing and a silent disco. Price of admission includes four drink tickets. (Sean McCourt)

6:30-9:30pm, $35

Aquarium of the Bay

Pier 39, SF.

www.aquariumofthebay.com

(415) 623-5300

THURSDAY 13

Breakfast: A History

Many modern Americans might have struggled with breakfast in the mid-1800’s, according to author Heather Arndt Anderson: “Bacon and eggs, pancake with syrup, and hot coffee were now considered as ‘injurious’ to one’s health as masturbation.” Anderson explains in her book Breakfast: A History how Americans’ healthy living attitudes at that time spurred the development of granola as a popular food. Anderson’s origin stories and accessible anthropological analysis showcase how the early day cuisine from different eras shape what we eat today. “Breakfast” also explores how culture, linguistics, religion and mass media elevated the morning meal’s status to the most important meal of the day. (Kevin Lee)

6:30pm-7:30pm

Omnivore Books

3885 Cesar Chavez, SF

(415)282-4712

www.omnivorebooks.com

Free

Valentine’s Day Gay Romance from Cleis Press

Don’t mind the fogged-up windows at Books Inc. in the Castro on Wednesday night. Cleis Press has a steamy evening in store for you! This pre-Valentine’s Day book reading will celebrate the best parts of gay romance with tales of first times, young love, and longtime commitments. The independent queer publishing company has lined up three celebrated gay erotica authors for a night of hot-and-heavy prose followed by a book signing. Rob Rosen will share a titillating excerpt from one of his recent erotic novels, while Felice Picano and Lewis DeSimone will read from Best Gay Romance 2014, a sexy and lustful anthology that tackles all matters of the heart, soul, and bedroom. (Laura B. Childs)

7:30pm, free

Books Inc. The Castro

2275 Market, SF

www.booksinc.net

FRIDAY 14

Thao and The Get Down Stay Down

Hometown hero Thao Nguyen has been very busy of late, touring her band’s newest album We the Common, writing and recording short films with the likes of Ira Glass for Funny or Die, shooting music videos (and getting shut down by the SFPD) on the new Bay Bridge, and volunteering frequently for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. Thao and the Get Down Stay Down’s music, a folk-rock blend, is simultaneously intimate and socially conscious, with her most recent work featuring themes of community and gratitude. Nguyen has been playing San Francisco shows semi-frequently for years, but this night will see her headlining the beloved and historied Fillmore for the first time, so this gig is sure to be electric. (Haley Zaremba)

With Sonny and the Sunsets

9pm, $20

The Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-3000

www.thefillmore.com

CCR Headcleaner

Does your ideal Valentine’s Day date entail seeing a mixture of psych-infused sludge rock and girl-dominated punk bands, all for thecost of $5? If yes, then consider your plans made. CCR Headcleaner, Quaaludes and Mane are throwing a bash during everybody’s favorite Hallmark holiday at Hemlock Tavern. Local raucous rockers CCR Headcleaner recently made waves with its split EP alongside Ty Segall’s stoner garage rock band, Fuzz, for the “Less Artists More Condos” 7″ series. Playing with CCR Headcleaner is Quaaludes, a San Francisco punk girl band that draws influences from the likes of grunge and riot grrrl. Opening is ’80s goth-tinged post-punk girl band, Mane. Though each band draws from different influences, each band brings an unfiltered, raw quality to its performance. So grab your partner, sweetie, S.O. – or whatever you call them – and march on over to the Hemlock for a grimy punk show. (Erin Dage)

With Quaaludes, Mane

9pm, $5

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

Hubba Hubba Revue

Looking for a Valentine’s event that’s sure to blow all the others away? Slip into the world of scandalous speakeasies, flirtatious flappers and gun-toting gangsters tonight when Bay Area burlesque group Hubba Hubba Revue presents a special “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” themed show. Enjoy bootlegged beverages while watching a bevy of beauties from around the world perform on stage, including Lilly Tiger from Berlin and Fever Blister from LA — expect spats to be stripped, and fedoras to be flung — all giving a racy take on romance from the roaring twenties. (Sean McCourt)

9pm, $15-$30

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

www.hubbarevue.com

Company C Contemporary Ballet

Some 12 years ago, Company C Contemporary Ballet started modestly with student performers; it now has a fine group of professional dancers and an infrastructure that supports it. After this season they’ll change to a “project-based” format that is less financially demanding and artistically more flexible. Artistic Director Charles Anderson has always had a knack for programming his own pieces in conjunction with intriguing works by other. That’s not likely to change. His is and will remain a ballet company featuring choreography that showcases 21st century dance. Among two of Anderson’s works, this program features Charles Moulton’s ingenious Nine Person Precision Ball Passing; Susan Jaffe’s Weather — who knew that the great ABT Ballerina choreographed? — and Yuri Zhukov’s expanded Railroad Joint. (Rita Felciano)

Feb. 13 and 14, 8pm. $25-48

Feb. 15, 6pm Gala. Feb. 16, 3pm

YBCA, LAM Research Center Theater, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

SATURDAY 15

Myron & E

The Stones Throw record label is sort of the indie Motown of the 21st century, and their latest output, Myron and E, has instantly become some of the coolest cats on the LA-based cadre of vinyl evangelists. The deliciously soulful duo will be bringing its spunky horns, soothing rhythms, and hypnotic vocals to the Independent in support of their debut LP Broadway. The lead single “If I Gave You My Love” showcases the duo’s one-two punch of Barry White-esque vocals on the chorus, surrounded by peppy falsetto. Myron and E got together in the Bay after Myron escaped from LA, where he was working on the sketch comedy show “In Living Color.” If there ever was an occasion to bust out your special bowtie and fancy dancing shoes, it’s this show. (George McIntire)

9pm, $20 adv, $22 door

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

B.A.R.F.

February 15 is the date that many people will join in one area for their common love of BARF (Bay Area Record Label Fair). Vomit word-play aside, here are the details: local organizations Father/Daughter Records and Professional Fans have come together to spearhead the first annual event honoring record labels across the Bay Area. Labels such as Polyvinyl, Castle Face, 1-2-3-4 Go! Records, Slumberland, and many more will be selling their music all under one roof for such an occasion. To sweeten the deal, uber-talented bands representing local labels such as “difficult” punks Twin Steps, pop-punk sister duo Dog Party, power-pop sensations Cocktails, and psych-rocker Al Lover will be performing at the gig! And the best part about this event? There’s no need to cough up cash to get in. (Erin Dage)

With Twin Steps, Dog Party, Cocktails, Al Lover

12pm, Free

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St, SF

(415) 252-1330

www.theeparkside.com

John Talabot at Icee Hot

After slow simmering yet heavy hitting releases like ‘Sunshine,’ John Talabot released his debut ƒIN in 2012 to crossover attention. Add in a single live performance with collaborator Pional leading to touring with The xx, the only question would be what 2013 bring. The answer: an equally lauded entry into DJ-Kicks mix series, with Talabot taking his ability to sustain an emotional moment in time — dark, melancholic, tender, whatever — and extended it into a career-up to-here defining set. It’s perhaps the best entry yet into his sound, as much forward looking (including new songs “Without You” and “Siderall”) as tied to the past, with obscurities like Jurgen Paape’s remix of “Kron” by Sillikron reaching back to nights spent as a windowlicking trainspotter in Barcelona clubs, notebook in hand. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Galcher Lustwerk, Ghosts on Tape, Shawn Reynaldo, DJ Will

10pm-4am, $5-15 presale

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com

SUNDAY 16

East Bay Comic Con

You don’t have to go all the way down to San Diego this year to get your comic book and pop culture fix — just check out East Bay Comic Con, a brand new event that will feature a host of comic book vendors along with several special guests including Richard Kiel (who played “Jaws,” the towering villain with metal teeth in two James Bond films) and John Stanley (author and host of KTVU’s classic TV show “Creature Features”). James O’Barr, the creator of The Crow, will also be on hand, and will kick off the party with a screening of the film based on his comic the night before. (Sean McCourt)

Movie screening and Q&A

7pm Sat/15, Free for first 350 fans

Brenden Theater

1985 Willow Pass Rd., Concord

East Bay Comic Con

10am-4:30pm, $5 (children 8 and under free)

Concord Hilton 1970 Diamond Blvd., Concord

www.eastbaycomiccon.com

TUESDAY 18

“Committed Cinema: Tony Buba” Braddock, Penn., got its big-screen moment last year with the release of Out of the Furnace, Scott Cooper’s occasionally overwrought tale of two brothers battling grim destinies in the crumbling steel town. As it turns out, documentarian Tony Buba has been lensing his blue-collar hometown for decades, and the filmmaker dubbed “a national treasure” by the Anthology Film Archives is coming to Berkeley to share his work and converse with USF education professor Rick Ayers. Tonight, “The Braddock Chronicles” compiles shorts from 1972-85. More shorts precede screenings of narrative Lightning Over Braddock: A Rustbowl Fantasy (1988), and his most recent doc, 2013’s We Are Alive! The Fight to Save Braddock Hospital, on consecutive nights. (Cheryl Eddy)

Feb 18-20, 7pm, $5.50-$9.50

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk.

bampfa.berkeley.edu

Full steam ahead

Michael Redmond

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February 11, 2014

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arts@sfbg.com

BEER Just across McCovey Cove from AT&T Park, the San Francisco Giants and Anchor Brewing Company are concocting a beer-filled future for Pier 48. As part of the Mission Rock development project, the new Anchor brewery, slotted to break ground in late 2015, would allow Anchor to quadruple production and remain in San Francisco.

The proposed brewery will eventually contain a restaurant, museum, educational space, and distillery. It’s being designed with giant windows that will offer an unprecedented view of operations. Brewing would be transparent enough to be observed while casually strolling the pier or even from certain seats inside the ballpark.

“As you come in and you look into the brewery, the first thing you’ll see will be one of the cold fermentors,” says architect Olle Lundberg, referring to the large cooling pans or “cool ships” Anchor still uses to chill its boiled beer batches. “The bar for the restaurant will look out over that, so you’ll be looking out over this kind of sea of beer into the brewery. If that doesn’t inspire you to drink, I don’t know what will.”

Anchor has been poised to expand for years. It even has a copper German brewhouse ready to install in the new facility. It’s been sitting in storage since it was purchased in the early 1990s by then-CEO Fritz Maytag. He left the collection of kettles, mash tuns, and fermentors unused when his plans for a new brewery were sidelined by that rarest of business concerns: happiness.

“In 1990 the brewery was doing about 100,000 barrels, which made it the number one craft brewery in the country,” says CEO Keith Greggor in his cheery British accent. “Further expansion was going to be very difficult, very costly. At the same time, [Maytag] got very interested in distilling and he decided, ‘You know what? I’m number one. I don’t need to focus on being the biggest and the baddest. I’m happy with what I’m doing and I’m going to focus on distilling now.’ And he was one of the first in that kind of craft distilling revolution that’s happened.”

This was the second craft revolution that Maytag, the great-grandson of Maytag Appliance founder Frederick Maytag, helped to ignite. In 1965, he was enjoying a “Steam Beer” at a North Beach restaurant when he was told it would be the last he would ever have: the brewery, which had survived Prohibition decades earlier, was closing. Hearing this, he purchased a controlling share of the company, saving from extinction not only a brewery in operation since 1896, but one of the only known styles of beer to have originated in America. “Steam Beer,” technically classified as “California Common Beer,” is a lager fermented at ale temperatures.

But times have changed since 1965. Craft brewing has been revived in America to the point that decorative plastic hops are A Thing. And competition demands more than being the only kid on the block with flavorful barley-pop. So in addition to the new brewery plans, Anchor will be discontinuing its bock beer and Humming Ale, while offering a new saison and an IPA.

“We like to say that we’re resting those beers,” says Greggor of the discontinued lines. “We have to respond to the consumer and retail demand for beer. And the demand for today is: ‘I want new. I want new.'”

And new it will be. Since 2010, when Maytag sold the brewery to the Griffin Group of Novato, most noted for their work with Skyy Vodka, Anchor has introduced several new beers to its regular line, including Brekle’s Brown, California Lager, and Big Leaf Maple. One the most recent is Small Beer, which draws from well-trod brewing techniques, making a lighter, more session-able ale from the mash of Old Foghorn — a more robust, flavorful brew.

And the Mission Rock development hopes to get even more out of those spent grains. As part of a proposed district-wide energy management facility, Anchor’s waste and run-off could be used to create methane for heating, and gray-water for toilets and sprinklers.

“We’re looking at all kinds of crazy, fun ideas for waste recapture,” says Fran Weld, director of real estate for the Giants. (The team, which is partnered with the Port of San Francisco on the project, asked Anchor to be the first tenant.) “The idea of looking at a district-wide solution is you can consolidate all of those chilling towers and boilers that the developers would otherwise build. You can do fewer of them because of the fact that you’re meeting the demands of the site as a whole — so your baseline of required energy is much lower.”

Still awaiting final approval from city agencies, the Mission Rock plan also includes mixed-use office, retail, restaurant, and manufacturing spaces, as well as affordable housing. But perhaps most remarkable is the development will enable San Francisco’s oldest and largest manufacturer to remain within the city, though at no small cost.

“You can imagine there are much, much cheaper places for them to build this facility,” says Lundberg, whose design firm is joint-venturing the project with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. “They could just keep Potrero Hill as a kind of, you know, boutique signature facility and then make most of their product in Chico or somewhere. But instead they’ve decided that they really want to be here and they want to do it all here and there’s a big number attached to that.”

When asked if he has considered a opening an additional brewery elsewhere (as Petaluma-based Lagunitas has done in Chicago), Greggor is almost offended.

“I believe that Anchor belongs in San Francisco. That’s our history, that’s our heritage,” says Greggor. “People have an affinity to us, whether they drink beer or not, they like us being part of the city. They applaud our efforts to stay on in the city and make beer here even though it’s a very expensive environment to do so. And we ourselves are all committed personally and passionately to the city. And we don’t want to go anywhere else! We’ll make less money and live here, please.” *

Thirsty for more? Check out all the sudsy goings-on at SF Beer Week (www.sfbeerweek.org), including events featuring Anchor beers, now through Sun/16.

The layout

Michael Redmond

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February 11, 2014

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SUPER EGO “A man, a plan, a gram: anal canal!” Why some queen just shrieked this quasi-palindrome in my earhole at 5am outside the 7-Eleven — not the Castro one, I have my pride — absolutely no idea. But the poor, bedraggled dear has a point: BE PREPARED.

Next week is the Guardian’s fab annual Goldies issue, a wall-to-wall celebration of up-and-coming artists. And there’s no room in it for your beloved Super Ego (old). So here’s looking ahead to the next hot fortnight’s-worth of shindigs. Of course, the biggest hoot of all will be the Guardian 25th Annual Goldies party (Fri/21, 8-11pm, $10. Folsom Street Foundry, 1425 Folsom, SF.) DJs Primo and Wam Bam Ashleyanne will do a special soul-groove “golden oldies” set — and it’s $10 for all the beer you can drink. Plus, duh, the coolest people. Stick it in your calendar, already.

QBERT

Last week’s SFBG cover star, scratch legend Qbert, joins with Dan The Automator, Del The Funky Homosapien, and more local hip-hop/turntable heroes for a wild time, in support of his crowdsource campaign for his new album, Extraterrestria/Galaxxxian (www.djqbert.com).

Thu/13, 9pm, $10 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. wwww.mezzaninesf.com

SLOW HANDS

Talk about heartthrobs, yum. This cutie brought major sexy back to dance floors when he slowed tempos down to a crawl and let everyone stretch out. Now he’s all about crooning live and steaming things up with Tom Croose as the Worst Friends duo — also appearing at this As You Like It lovefest.

Fri/14, 10pm-4am, $10–$20. Beatbox, 314 11th St, SF. www.ayli-sf.com

JOHN TALABOT

That thing where a DJ is also a magician, creating a whole new psychedelic-ecstatic universe out of common sounds, rearranging how you hear music forever. He’s also Spanish and wears a lot of tinfoil over his face for photos. At the Icee Hot party.

Sat/15, 10pm-4am, $10 advance. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

DISCO DADDY

There is a thing called Bear Weekend with a long and dramatic history (let’s not get into it) — and here’s this year’s fun-furry climax: DJ Bus Station John turns the Eagle leather biker bar into a glorious old school gay disco evening t-dance. Bring your own chic towel, but no Schick razors, please. “Endorsed by the Tamale Lady,” fyi.

Sun/16, 7pm-midnight, $5. SF Eagle, 398 12th St, SF. www.sf-eagle.com

HONEY SOUNSYSTEM PRESIDENTS EVE

Celebrate the presidents with Honey’s lovely residents: P-Play, Kendig, Josh Cheon, and Robot Hustle give the cute queer boys, girls, and others steamy techno all night long. (Hot straight people also eligible.)

Sun/23,10pm-4am, $10 advance. Beatbox, 314 11th St, SF. www.beatboxsf.com

GILLES PETERSON

“Rare groove” would be nothing without this absolutely incredible, omnivorous DJ. And neither would Diplo. Experience a Whole Earth Catalog of sounds in his mindblowing sets. I love him.

Fri/21, 10pm-3am, $20. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

CARL CRAIG + FRANCOIS K

If you know anything about dance music, you have probably just wet yourself. If not, let’s be clear: One of Detroit techno’s most poetic innovators and one of the best disco, house, and dub producers of all time will be on the decks, as part of Red Bull Music Academy Bass Camp 2014.

Sat/22, 9:30pm-3:30am, $15–$20. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

KEVIN SAUNDERSON

Happy eighth birthday to the Lights Down Low party. And happier birthday to us dancers! LDL’s bringing in this true legend, basically one of three guys who invented techno — from Detroit, duh — and changed the world forever.

Sat/22, 9pm-3am, $15–$20. Monarch, 101 Sixth St, SF. www.monarchsf.com

PUT ON THE BREAKS

I’ve been wondering when this would happen. A breakbeat revival has been hitting the underground rave and techno connoisseur scene for a couple years. Now there’s an official dedicated party. Noice. With Kapt N Kirk, Tamo, Nerd Nate, and more.

Sat/22, 10pm-3am, free before midnight (RSVP at www.mighty119.com). Mighty, 119 Utah, SF.

HONEY DIJON

Beloved and classic DJ Nikita is headed off to London. But first he’s counting down eight monthly London Calling parties with incredible special guests, like NYC banging house royalty Honey Dijon and Tedd Patterson.

Sun/23, 2pm-2am, $10 advance. Audio, 316 11th St, SF. www.audiosf.com

No parking

Michael Redmond

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February 11, 2014

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joe@sfbg.com

An ordinance to close all San Francisco city parks at night drew fire from homeless advocates, who called out sponsoring Sup. Scott Wiener and the Recreation and Park Department for targeting the homeless, charges they denied, claiming it was really about preventing vandalism in parks.

At this point, with enforcement slow to begin, the jury is still out. The ordinance passed on Nov. 5, on a 6-5 vote. Wiener denied allegations that it would criminalize poverty or homelessness.

“If the police wanted to remove people sleeping and camping in parks, they already have the tools to do that. This legislation does not give them those tools beyond what they have,” Wiener said at the hearing.

Sup. London Breed was skeptical of that claim, telling her colleagues, “I’ve been told again and again this will not target the homeless. But if it doesn’t target the homeless or the investment banker or the firefighter, who will this law target? Suspicious looking people in hoods? Teenagers?”

New reports from homeless advocates on social media have bubbled to the surface, raising concerns that the crackdown had begun.

“We’re starting to see more queer and trans youth getting these tickets,” one tipster said on Facebook, a post which was widely recirculated. So the Guardian decided to dig through citations in two popular “campgrounds,” Buena Vista Park and Golden Gate Park, to see if those concerns bore out.

Two of the leading nonprofits serving homeless queer youth — LYRIC and Larkin Street Youth Services — weren’t yet able to point to specific cases of the new law being used to roust homeless youth.

“I think you’re speaking with me because I’d have my ear a bit closer to the curb,” said Jefferson Fellows, manager of Larkin’s Haight Street Outreach center. “I’m just another perspective and not seeing the whole picture.”

Fellows’ outreach center most often sees youth from Buena Vista Park, which is generally used by homeless youth who are passing through the city or the state on their way elsewhere. Golden Gate Park is home to more “permanent residents,” for lack of better term, of the parks.

Tickets get regularly issued to campers in both parks, where it was illegal to camp even before the latest park closure ordinance.

“This one kid who kept every one had a telephone book thick of tickets,” said Fellows, whose group helps young people pay or challenge the tickets. “I think for the last two three months or so he was getting two tickets a day, constantly. He had no hope to pay off any one of them, let alone however many he had.”

Fellows sees many of the youth who sleep in Buena Vista Park, but said he hadn’t seen an uptick in citations, nor has he heard of youth being cited under the new law.

Trying to get the inside perspective, we sat on steps at Buena Vista Park in the rain drinking a beer with Wizco, who took his name from the last place he saw his Winnebago: Wisconsin. Wizco drank a Blue Moon, lamenting his lack of citrus (the Guardian had an Anchor Steam, for the record). The homeless young man is a writer, and found love here at Buena Vista Park, on “the mountain,” as the kids call it. As with many love stories, his hit a snag.

“She has a writer’s soul,” he said, which is what drew him to her. But soon things soured. “It’s only been me and my chick up in the mountain, until she got schizo’d out and left me to go to a higher mountain.”

And isn’t that always the way — loved ones sometimes leave us for a higher mountain.

As for the park closure law, Wizco confirmed he’s been left to sleep most nights, only to be roused before sunrise each day. “The man in the yellow coat,” is how he referred to the Park Ranger, but sometimes it’s an SFPD officer rousing him, he said.

That conforms to the police records we found. SFPD citations for the month of January and February show the usual roundup of park campers and sleepers every morning, usually one round at 4am and another at 8am. Officers from Park Police station issued over 20 citations and warnings, mostly citations, to folks sleeping and camping in the parks on Jan. 30 alone.

But no citation or warnings were listed under the new park closure law. And from what the Recreation and Park Department told us, the rangers haven’t thrown anyone out of the park under the new law yet either. But why?

“We’re in the process of implementing and enforcing the legislation,” said Connie Chan, RPD’s deputy director of public affairs.

The department hasn’t put up any signs about park closure yet. And without signs, she said it can’t enforce anything.

After that, we’ll see if the fears of homeless advocates are founded. Until then, Wizco is happily enjoying his time in San Francisco. “You have indie record stores and health, growth, people and hope, angels and recovery,” he said. “I’m loving this town.”

The San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldies party is February 21!

Maria Poblet

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February 10, 2014

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The San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldies party is February 21!

The San Francisco Bay Guardian is celebrating our 25th Annual Goldies (Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery) Awards on February 21 with a late night happy hour and fundraiser following a private ceremony for our winners. Come out to support and raise money for CounterPULSE by drinking Lagunitas beer for a great cause!

ONLY $10 for UNLIMITED BEER from from 8-11pm!

Wear your finest GOLD attire! Under the Golden Gate will be shooting red carpet photos and video!

Featuring DJ Primo Pitino and DJ Wam Bam Ashleyanne.

Wristbands will be sold at the door and online at getwillcall.com/thegoldies. Join our Facebook event page here for updates!

Friday, February 21

Folsom Street Foundry

1425 Folsom, SF

8-11pm

About the Goldies (Issue hits stands February 19!):

The Goldies stand for Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery awards, and it represents the Bay Guardian’s annual celebration of local musicians, filmmakers, dancers, choreographers, and theater and visual artists who have affixed their unique stamps on the Bay Area’s diverse, ever-changing arts scene.

Goldies winners produce work that stands out for being exciting, provocative, influential, inspiring, and even awe-inspiring. Goldie winners are selected by a group of Bay Guardian editors and contributors who aim to award those whose careers are still on the rise, having not yet achieved the widespread recognition we suspect they’ll soon be enjoying.

Thinking back to Goldies past, the Bay Guardian has had an incredible track record in picking those who’re destined for greatness: Craig Baldwin (film, 1991); Beth Custer (music, 1992); Barry McGee (visual arts, 1994); Charlie Hunter Trio (music, 1994); Charlie Varon (performance, 1995); Dan “The Automator” Nakamura (music, 1997); Krissy Keefer (dance, 1997); Paula Frazer (music, 1997); The Coup (music, 1998); Neurosis (music, 1999); and more.

Pick up your SF Bay Guardian Goldies Issue on Wednesday, February 19 and find out who the winners are!

About CounterPULSE:

CounterPULSE is a home for grassroots arts and culture in San Francisco. Located at 9th and Mission in SOMA in San Francisco, CounterPULSE is a theater, performance space, community center, gallery, and more. With roots deep in the Bay Area’s creative and provocative performance and dance scenes CounterPULSE provides space for performances, rehearsals, workshops, classes, and discussions.

As a 501(c)3 non-profi t organization CounterPULSE offers subsidized rehearsal and rental space for artists, operates a fiscal sponsorship program for local creative and socially-relevant projects, and supports the creation of new artistic work through a notable artist in residence program.

Come support local arts and drink for a good cause on Friday, February 21!

Horsing around

Michael Redmond

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January 28, 2014

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culture@sfbg.com

CHOW NOW

What’s that galloping sound? It’s the Year of the Horse, breaking away Fri/31! In honor of the Lunar New Year, you’ll find special menus all over town, with all kinds of symbolic dishes to help ensure you have a year of prosperity, long life, good health, and cash money. If you can get a posse together, head over to M.Y. China (Westfield Centre, 845 Market, Fourth floor, www.mychinasf.com) for its Chinese New Year banquet menu: you can go for the Fisherman’s Wharf ($388 for 5 people/ $688 for 10) or the Treasure Island ($488 for 5/ $888 for 10), with dishes like crazy-delicious jasmine tea–smoked sea bass, forbidden rice, and kung pao crab — or stir-fried lobster if you pony up, ha-ha, for the Treasure Island. Available Saturday January 25-Friday February 21.

Every time I dine at Butterfly (Pier 33, SF. www.butterflysf.com) for the Lunar New Year menu, I waddle out of there like a Peking duck. Chef-owner Rob Lam is completely bonkers for crab, so you’ll find a menu fully loaded with dishes like crab and fried uni hand rolls (uh huh), crab jook with a sous vide egg (trust, I want this more than once a year), orange chile crab, and more. The menu is $75, tax and tip not included, and runs from January 28 through the month of February.

More on the Vietnamese tip is the Lunar New Year brunch that the Rice Paper Scissors ladies are putting on Saturday February 1 at Brick and Mortar (1710 Mission, SF. www.ricepaperscissors.com). Start your day with steamed buns, pho, claypots, and mooncakes (of course). 11am–3pm, cash only.

The talented team at Delise Dessert Café (327 Bay, SF. www.delisesf.com) annually bake up Peking duck scones in honor of the lunar new year. You can pick some up over the next couple weeks, plus special treats like a black sesame macaron with red bean filling, along with honey-chrysanthemum ice cream and pomegranate oolong sorbet. YES.

BALLIN’ ON A BUDGET

Some pop-ups are better deals than others, especially when the cooks know what the hell they’re doing. That is definitely the case with Eddie Lau (behind the former Dux pop-up, The Summit, Poleng Lounge, Orson), who is hosting an upcoming dinner with Luis Villavelazquez (Les Éléments Patisserie) called Fortress: Solitude and San Francisco. They’ll be taking over 20th Century Café (198 Gough, SF.), a damn cute space in Hayes Valley, on Sunday February 9: take your pick of seatings at 6:30pm or 8:30pm. For $60 (gratuity included), you’ll get multiple courses of dishes like Dux poutine, vadouvan curry, and Dungeness on capellini, and there’s some tripe and chorizo on there too. Dessert wraps it all up with a black truffle, burnt cinnamon, and cocoa nib number. Plus you can get beverage pairings for $20. Tickets and more info at www.fortress-sf.com.

Comebacks can be so sweet, especially when it’s the locally beloved — especially by vegetarians — sandwich establishment, Estela’s (250 Fillmore, SF. 415-553-6068), which was displaced by that nasty fire in the Lower Haight in September of 2011. Just like its neighbor, Three Twins Ice Cream, Estela’s is back in biz and slinging hefty sammies. Hours are Mon–Thu 7am–5pm and Fri–Sat 7am–4pm.

Looking for a new pod o’ food trucks? During the week in SoMa, you’ll find G Food Lounge (431 2nd St, SF. www.gfoodlounge.com), complete with breakfast options –sweet! — seating at tables, free Wi-Fi, and comfy couches. How civilized. Trucks like Curry Up Now, Sunrise Deli, Doc’s of the Bay, and Frozen Kuhsterd are all in the mix. Please stand by, because beer and wine will be added soon. Hours are Mon–Fri 7am–9pm.

Marcia Gagliardi is the founder of the weekly tablehopper e-column; subscribe for more at www.tablehopper.com. Get her app: Tablehopper’s Top Late-Night Eats. On Twitter: @tablehopper.

This Week’s Picks: January 29 – February 4, 2014

Michael Redmond

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January 28, 2014

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WEDNESDAY 29

Yuck

The year 2013 was a tumultuous one for this London indie outfit. It recorded and released its sophomore album within a matter of months, simultaneously announcing the record and frontman Daniel Blumberg’s departure from the band. This was a surprising turn of events for a band that should have been basking in the afterglow of the critical success of its 2011 debut, not to mention universal adoration by both music journalists and the blogosphere. Instead of disbanding or recruiting a new vocalist, guitarist Max Bloom has stepped up to the mic and taken a turn from its shoegaze-tinged debut to embrace other forms of alternative rock, but don’t worry — it still sounds like it emerged from a time capsule buried in 1997. (Haley Zaremba)

With GRMLN, The She’s

8pm, $15

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

THURSDAY 30

Performance Research Experiment #2

It sounds deceptively dry, but “Performance Research Experiment #2” is a fairly accurate description of what Jess Curtis and his partners will show this weekend: It’s simultaneously a show and a scientific inquiry of what a performance does to a viewer — like it or not. Some of it will be sheer fun, some of it puzzling, and some of it difficult to watch. Curtis admits that the experience can be “intense.” The work — about a dozen two-minute episodes performed by Curtis and his partner on stage Joerg Mueller with media artist Yoann Trellu — raises fascinating questions about our bodies’ involuntary responses to what comes at them. This performance shows that science and art, contrary to common assumptions, can in fact inhabit the same universe. (Rita Felciano)

Jan. 30-Feb.1, 8pm, $15-20

Joe Goode Annex

499, Alabamba St. SF

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/537659

“Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese”

Oakland food writer and chef Stephanie Stiavetti has gone and done something we were all waiting for: made our near-constant urge to eat only macaroni and cheese for dinner seem like a reasonable, adult thing to do. Her new cookbook marries the sophistication of handcrafted artisan cheeses from around the world with the simple joy produced only by the smell of perfectly browned, parmesan-covered pasta filling your kitchen. There are classic recipes, to be sure; there’s also an entire roasted pumpkin stuffed with Italian sausage, pasta and Fontina. She’ll talk all things mac-and-cheesy at this reading, and of course — don’t forget your Lactaid — she’ll be bringing samples. (Emma Silvers)

6:30pm, free

Omnivore Books on Food

3885a Cezar Chavez, SF

(415) 282-4712

www.omnivorebooksonfood.com

FRIDAY 31

Jean-Luc Godard: Expect Everything from Cinema

We know him best for his 1959 black-and-white debut Breathless, a genre-changing film that came to epitomize the French New Wave with its philosophical angst, tender tragedies, and haphazard American-Western heroism — all set in Paris of the ’60s, with recklessness, heavy eyeliner, and a rejection of the traditional love story. Yet Jean-Luc Godard produced a number of works, and when viewed together they form an inventive collection, to say the least. Beginning Jan. 31, BAM/PFA will screen Godard’s shorts and features in the film series “Expect Everything From Cinema,” allowing Godard die-hards and New Wave newbies the chance to see his films on the big screen, and begin to recognize characteristics of his work on a continuum, from subversive political messages to his ambiguous-realism style. (Kaylen Baker)

Times vary per week, visit BAMPFA website for details, $9.50

Pacific Film Archive Theater

2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley

(510) 642-1124

bampfa.berkeley.edu

Dirty Harry

Of all of Clint Eastwood’s many iconic film roles, that of rogue San Francisco Police Detective Harry Callahan in 1971’s Dirty Harry is perhaps the most indelible. Shot on location throughout the city and Marin County, the film mixed the traditional cop drama with a harsh and gritty approach, incorporating then-recent events such as the Zodiac into the script about a serial killer terrorizing the populace. Here’s your chance to cheer on one of the most famous — but misquoted — lines in film history: “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?!” Feature preceded by cartoons, newsreels, games, and more. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $5

Paramount Theatre

2025 Broadway, Oakland

(510) 465-6400

www.paramounttheatre.com

SATURDAY 1

Reggie and the Full Effect

For a guy who played with classic emo outfits like the Get Up Kids and My Chemical Romance, Kansas City’s James Dewees sure seems like a happy guy. His solo act, Reggie and the Full Effect, is the polar opposite of Dewees’ other musical endeavors. This bizarre and completely hilarious side project bounces back and forth between genres as varied as hardcore, emo pop, and bluegrass, sporting song titles like “Happy Chickens” and “Revenge is a Dish Best Served at Park Chan-Wook’s.” Though Dewees hit the road for a farewell tour in 2008, he’s back this year with a new album (thanks, Kickstarter) and his first solo tour in half a decade. The only thing to expect from this show is the unexpected. And trust us, the unexpected is very, very entertaining. (Zaremba)

With Dads, Pentimento

8:30pm, $16

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

Millennium Film Journal: 35th Anniversary Celebration

Sprung from the still-vital Millennium Film Workshop, which had its edgy beginnings in New York City’s fertile 1960s Lower East Side scene, the bi-annual Millennium Film Journal has been studying and celebrating avant-garde film since 1978 (and has since expanded to include video and works in other mediums, too). This San Francisco Cinematheque presentation welcomes current editor Grahame Weinbren to celebrate the publication’s 58th issue with a program of film and video by Stella Brennan, Catherine Elwes, and others, as well as a slideshow that looks back through its long and varied history on the printed page. (Cheryl Eddy)

7:30pm, $6-$10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

www.sfcinematheque.org

SUNDAY 2

The Fourth Annual Super Bowl: Men In Tights

If you’d rather do your taxes than watch three hours of football this weekend, join SF Indiefest at the Roxie for the Fourth Annual Super Bowl: Men in Tights comedy show — “Come for the comedy, stay for the commercials.” Indiefest’s SportsSweater comedians will provide hysterical (and most likely incorrect) play-by-play commentary, raunchy sketches, and general debauchery while the game plays on Roxie’s big screen. Ad junkies rejoice, as the only untouched part of the Superbowl comes every 15 minutes. Watch America’s top-notch commercials uninterrupted by the horde of jokesters. And what Sunday football viewing is complete without beer, wine, bloodies, and snacks? Tickets benefit the Roxie Theater and IndieFest. (Laura Childs)

3pm, $10

The Roxie

3117 16th, SF

www.roxie.com

The Toasters

Everything has changed since 1981. The Soviet Union has fallen, the Internet has taken over the world, smartphones have taken over our brains, and no one listens to Kim Carnes. One thing, however, has stayed completely, unflaggingly consistent: New York’s checker-caped crusaders of third-wave ska. Thirty-three years, nine albums, and 40 lineup changes later, the Toasters are still skanking. Though they haven’t released a new record since 2007, these ska kings have been touring nearly constantly for three decades. If you’re looking for up-and-coming, hip, or new and different, this is not the show for you. But if you’re looking for an absolute blast with some well-practiced dudes who know how to put on a show better than just about anyone, you definitely want to be at the Gilman tonight. (Haley Zaremba)

With Monkey, Jokes for Feelings, The Skunkadelics, Skank Bank

5pm, $10

924 Gilman, Berkeley

(510) 524-8180

www.924gilman.org

Groundhog Day

If you’re among the grouchy, local Niners fans looking for something else to do this Sunday, why not enjoy the uniquely brilliant 1993 comedy Groundhog Day screening on the holiday itself? The cult classic stars Bill Murray as a cantankerous TV reporter who is grudgingly sent to cover the annual proceedings in Punxsutawney, Pa., only to be trapped in a mysterious time loop where he is forced to repeat the same day, over and over again. Following his journey, going from annoyed and suicidal to finally embracing life and love, this funny and touching film was added to the National Film Registry in 2006. (Sean McCourt)

2pm, $8-$8.50

CineArts @ Empire Theater

85 West Portal, SF

(415) 661-2539

www.cinemark.com

MONDAY 3

Burroughs at 100: The Films of William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs is best known for his powers with the written word. Specifically, his tendency to do terrible, wonderful, innovative, influential, shocking and heroin-laced things with it over the course of 18 novels, six collections of short stories, and four collections of essays. His work in films, however — the result of collaboration with artist Brion Gysin and filmmaker Anthony Balch at the Beat Hotel in Paris — showcases an entirely new side to the writer, who was interested in the ways visual art could adapt his “cut-up” method and other themes in his writing. Part of City Lights’ celebration of Burrough’s 100th birthday, the films Towers Open Fire, The Cut-Ups, and Bill and Tony will be screened with commentary by Burrough’s friend, filmmaker, and film historian Mindaugis Bagdon. (Emma Silvers)

8pm, free

City Lights Bookstore

261 Columbus, SF

www.citylights.com

TUESDAY 4

From Russia Without Love: The 2014 Winter Olympics and Human Rights in Russia

Two good things, at least, that have come from the worldwide outrage at the horrifying persecution of homosexuals going on right now in Russia: a wake-up call that, despite many encouraging gains, us LGBTs are far from out of the woods yet. (The other good thing? Tons of hilarious memes of Putin in drag. Oh, and also we discovered which vodkas were actually Russian, so we could boycott them.) This discussion with educators and advocates will discuss the treatment of Russian homosexuals and queer athletes and spectators in the shadow of the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. The panel includes Dr. Krista Hanson, SFSU professor of Russian culture, and Helen Carroll, sports project director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights. (Marke B.)

5:30pm, $8-$20

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, SF

www.commonwealthclub.org

Mumble, mumble, murder

Michael Redmond

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January 28, 2014

1

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Joe Swanberg’s latest film to play the Roxie, 24 Exposures, isn’t actually his newest. That’d be family drama Happy Christmas, which just premiered at Sundance. Going by festival reviews, Christmas sounds like it’s in the vein of Swanberg’s Drinking Buddies — last year’s Olivia Wilde-starring tiptoe into the mainstream, a departure for the indie writer-director-actor — with a marquee cast that includes Buddies‘ Anna Kendrick and hipster queen Lena Dunham.

24 Exposures is the busy artist’s 15th flick to play the Roxie in a year (the list includes Buddies, 2012’s acclaimed All the Light in the Sky, 2007 breakout Hannah Takes the Stairs, and the only public screening to date of short Privacy Settings). In some ways, 24 Exposures marks another departure, being an “erotic thriller” (scare quotes needed, because it’s highly aware of its genre) — though it also incorporates Swanberg’s affection for relationships that aren’t working out, no matter how much the principals talk about their problems. His interest in horror (see: his participation in 2012 anthology film V/H/S and 2011 cult hit You’re Next, etc.) flavors 24 Exposures‘ plot: Parallel lives collide when photographer Billy (Adam Wingard), who snaps cute, topless women posed in gruesome death scenes, meets depressed cop Michael (Simon Barrett), who happens to be investigating the actual murder of a cute, topless woman.

Yep, this film stars director Wingard and writer Barrett of You’re Next and V/H/S fame. That slurping sound you hear is the mumblecore snake eating its tail, and not for the first time. (Is there anyone in that scene who hasn’t appeared in or worked on a peer’s film? The answer is no.) In 24 Exposures, it’s less of an in-joke than expected, since Billy and Michael don’t achieve BFF mode until the film’s coda. The relationships that form the core of the film are between Billy and the various women in his life, including girlfriend Alex (Caroline White), who is totes cool with his artistic pursuits as long as she’s included in the process, and any three-ways that occur after the shoots. Inevitably, there’s tension when she returns from a weekend away and realizes Billy’s been “taking smutty pictures when I’m not here.”

Billy is a sleaze, but otherwise he’s basically a harmless dude in a cardigan. If 24 Exposures had been made in early 1980s Europe, the film would pump out more bloody bodies for Michael to find; there’d be way more POV creeping and probably a chase involving an unseen killer wearing black leather gloves. Despite a sleek credit sequence illustrated with pulpy artwork, this is no lo-fi giallo. A better reference point is one from the script itself: Silk Stalkings, that 1990s epitome of basic-cable sexy thrillerdom. That it’s brought up jokingly (as in, “Do you feel like a character in Silk Stalkings right now?”) only enforces 24 Exposures‘ aspirations toward meta-ness.

The self-consciousness doesn’t end there. The film’s synthy score, which swells knowingly during suspenseful moments, is another obviously obvious choice. But if you’re expecting 24 Exposures to descend into full-on camp, you’ll come away disappointed. Lurid is perhaps a better descriptor, since 24 Exposures is bulging with “boobies” — a word Billy uses moments after explaining to a skeptical model that he practices “dress-up mixed with fine art.” Earlier, he’s described his work as “personal fetish photos,” clarifying that they’re “classy.” (Truly, they’re not.) We never see the results displayed anywhere, yet this is apparently his profession, not a private hobby, since the photo shoots involve makeup artists and assistants.

Clearly, 24 Exposures is poking fun at the erotic-thriller genre, and itself by extension. Any haters who cry “misogyny!” — because Swanberg’s camera ogles just as much as Billy’s does — are answered in a scene that’s been planned with them in mind. Photographing death is “way more interesting than taking a picture of a fuckin’ tree in your front yard,” Billy tells Michael, who counters by asking, “Why is it always dead women? Why not a dead old guy?” It’s not about that, Billy insists. “It’s ridiculous for me to try and explain this, because it’s not something that I even think about. You can’t say, ‘Why am I doing this?’ You just have to say, ‘OK, I’m attracted to this, and that’s what I’m gonna do.'”

That’s vague, and — again — Billy is a sleaze, but Swanberg’s careful to make his underlying point visually. When Michael asks Billy, “Have you ever seen a real dead body?”, it foreshadows the film’s second cute-girl murder. A distinction is made when a character we’ve come to sympathize with is brutally killed, and hers is the only crime scene that doesn’t invite us to leer at the victim.

The film’s last act cuts some months ahead; we see aspiring memoirist Michael receiving feedback from a book agent (played by Swanberg), who advises him to rewrite his manuscript. There are too many loose ends, he says, and not enough strong connections between the cop and the photographer. Oh, and the ending needs work, too. 24 Exposures, you’re talking to yourself — and you know it, and we know it, and you know we know you know.

Up next for the prolific, probably sleep-deprived Swanberg, who’s likely also got a dozen or so new movies in the pipeline: helming an episode of the San Francisco-set HBO series Looking. Wonder if there’ll be a scene set at the Roxie? *

24 EXPOSURES opens Fri/31 at the Roxie.

META WORLD PIECES: CATCHING UP WITH 24 EXPOSURES DIRECTOR JOE SWANBERG

SF Bay Guardian How’s Sundance?

Joe Swanberg It’s been amazing. [Happy Christmas] is a pretty small, personal movie, so it’s nice that people seem to be liking it.

SFBG When will it be coming out theatrically?

JS We’re probably gonna follow the Drinking Buddies (2013) release pattern of doing VOD and theatrical sometime around July, and then having it come out on DVD around Thanksgiving.

SFBG You’ve had 15 movies screen at the Roxie Theater in the past year, which is a pretty astonishing number.

JS They did a retrospective, which was incredible. Not only was it a great chance to hang out in San Francisco for a week, but it was amazing for me to look back at a lot of movies that I hadn’t seen in a long time. It’s also crazy to think that there’s that much stuff. I sort of forget that I’ve made that many movies.

SFBG Do you not consider yourself prolific?

JS Because I don’t write, I can very quickly jump from one project right into the next. The first six years I was making movies, I was making around one a year, because I had a day job and that was all the time I could spend on it. As soon as I was able to support myself as a filmmaker, I really was making a lot of them [laughs] — there was one year where I made six, which was really too many by anyone’s standards. It made the following year really strange, trying to actually get all of those out into the world. And also, while they’ve all had some form of distribution, there’s really only four or five of my movies that people have heard of. There’s all of these others that only the hardcore cinephiles have checked out.

SFBG When you say you don’t write, do you mean because your films are improvised?

JS Yeah, exactly. I do write, but it’s just an outlining process. I’m working so collaboratively with the actors that it’s not the sort of difficult screenplay process that a lot of filmmakers go through.

SFBG With this long filmography, is it weird for you to be suddenly known as “the director of Drinking Buddies”?

JS It’s totally fine. I tend to like the newest film the best, just because it’s the closest to where my head is at. Drinking Buddies would be the one that I would recommend to people, and talk about as well. And probably Happy Christmas will very quickly become the next center of conversations. I haven’t watched a lot of those early ones in a long time, so I don’t even know if I would like them anymore [laughs]. Hopefully, they’re all leading toward something. Getting better. Let me put it this way: It’s great that people are talking about Drinking Buddies and not some movie I made six years ago.

SFBG You mentioned that Happy Christmas is a personal movie, and obviously Drinking Buddies ties into your much-documented love of beer. So what inspired 24 Exposures?

JS I had been acting in genre movies a lot, especially with Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett. I was really interested in what motivated them to make those kinds of movies instead of romantic comedies or something [laughs]. Also, I think a lot of what 24 Exposures is about is the responsibility and ownership of that stuff. I wanted to investigate where the women fit in. Are they passive models who are being exploited, or are they willing participants? Are they co-authors of the art? Is it a little bit of all of those things? It’s something that I’ve made other movies about, too. I’m genuinely interested in the collaborative process. Who ends up taking the credit, and who ends up feeling taken advantage of?

SFBG The film is very meta.

JS Definitely. I was reading Richard Brody’s book on Jean-Luc Godard at the time, so meta was very much on my mind. I was interested in the way that Godard played around with genre movies, but very atypical genre movies. They were always much more like Godard movies than they were genre movies. It was fun to sort of dabble in that space. The other thing that was exciting to me was how my generation’s sexuality was informed by late-night Cinemax and very cheesy, soft-focus, heavy-music kind of stuff. (I’m 32.) When all of us were in junior high, that was the most erotic thing we had access to. That aesthetic is such a joke now. It’s so dated. So I wanted to investigate that as well.

SFBG Do you worry that someone will come across the film and not pick up on that subtext?

JS This is an interesting one for that question. Pretty much all of my movies have existed very squarely in the art-house audience, so I haven’t really thought much beyond that sort of space. But that’s changing these days, especially with Drinking Buddies, and, I’m assuming, with Happy Christmas too. So maybe 24 Exposures will be seen by considerably more people than some of those earlier ones. But I feel like the movie’s sort of subverting the genre at every turn. It never fully gains momentum as a pure exploitation thriller. Every five minutes it reminds you that you’re watching a movie, and puts in some sort of criticism or other unsexy thought into your head.

SFBG Totally changing gears, but I noticed you directed an episode of HBO’s Looking, which all anyone here can talk about right now.

JS Yeah! It was one of the most fun things I’ve done as a filmmaker. I really like the show, too, so I’m just happy to have had some little piece of involvement. I live in Chicago, so I have hometown pride, but San Francisco is without a doubt the most beautiful city in America. I spent three weeks trying to find a bad view, and I couldn’t. *

Locals Only: The American Professionals

Steven T. Jones

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January 28, 2014

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Locals Only is our shout-out to the musicians who call the Bay Area home — a chance to spotlight an artist/band/music-maker with an upcoming show, album release, or general good news to share.To be considered, email esilvers@sfbg.com.

With all the CDs that come across my desk, the American Professionals‘ latest, We Make It Our Business, caught my attention for a rather weird reason — it looked incredibly boring. At first glance, it seemed like a software or PR company had accidentally sent me some sort of business portfolio in disc form. Upon further review (i.e., actually reading the accompanying materials and listening to the music…this is why they pay me the big bucks) I realized it was anything but. The SF-based trio makes danceable, upbeat but never overly slick power pop with a little gravel in it; the new record should please anyone who can’t afford to see the Replacements at Coachella this year (or even those who can). The band also licenses its music to a couple of shows on Nickelodeon, via a process lead singer Chuck Lindo (also of Noise Pop veterans Action Slacks) still finds mysterious. Ahead of the American Professionals’ record release this Wednesday, we checked in with Lindo to hear about his influences, the music biz, and how he gets his seafood fix.

SF Bay Guardian: How long have you been in San Francisco? How did the band form?

Chuck Lindo: Cheryl [Hendrickson, the bass player/vocalist and also Lindo’s wife] and I moved here from St. Louis in 1991 with my old band, The Nukes. We left behind the humidity, crappy wintertime produce, and a pretty impressive fan base for the possibilities and romance of this freakshow of a place. Still here, but for a brief four year stint in Los Angeles 2003-2007. We got a chance to dry our bones out and re-learn how to drive cars. We met Adam White through another band I play bass and sing with, The Real Numbers. He had just moved out here from Indianapolis and we hit it off like crazy. There’s something about those midwesterners that just feels right. I think there’s some kind of code or dog whistle in there. It’s hard to describe.

SFBG: How would you describe your sound? There are obviously a lot of power-pop influences, some post-punk stuff going on.

CL: There is a lot of power pop in there, but we do come from the “power” side of that spectrum. I’ve always had a deep desire to hear Black Sabbath playing Squeeze songs. Somebody said we sounded like Cheap Trick on the Foo Fighters’ instruments playing Smithereens’ songs. I’ll take that. My first “real” band, The Nukes, was pretty damn close to being punk really, but not quite. I could never wear the attitude comfortably, but I do like it loud, fast, and crunchy. Cheryl and I have a funny mixture of influences. We both love heavy rock stuff, but she’s an Elton John freak and grew up on the Monkees and all those musicals like “Oliver!” and “Bugsy Malone.” I got into things like The Descendents and Dead Kennedys and The Clash in my teens and early twenties , but I have a gooey soft spot for early ’70s singer-songwriter stuff, and I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs about Stevie Wonder.

SFBG: How did the “business” aesthetic come about? Where does the band name come from?

CL: There’s an endless trough of funny stuff in the the faceless corporate ogre world. A lot of the aesthetic comes from observing my sister Nancy’s work. She’s a good old-fashioned family doctor in Wisconsin, and I’ve witnessed the evolution of how big pharma reaches physicians and now the general public itself. At first, I think they couldn’t say exactly what some of these drugs were intended to do, so they used all sorts of evocative imagery to produce the warm-fuzzy take-away. So much of that stuff was just pure creative genius, it’s impossible to not be impressed, even if it is sort of insidious. I just think it’s funny to overlay that ethos on a little three-piece rock band.

The name “The American Professionals” was coined by our friend David Reidy. He was a charter member of the band when I first started writing songs back in the late 1990s. He’s Irish and was working on getting his US citizenship at the time, and he was thoroughly enamored with the gumption, optimism, and resilience of the American people. We were backing an amazing singer-songwriter, Pamela Martin, and at a live show, right before soundcheck, he pointed back at his guitar rig and said something like “Chuck, you see that? That’s the American professional setup right there.” He had his spare guitar, rack tuner, slide, combo amp with road case, pedal board, extra strings, a white towel, the whole deal. It became this sort of rallying ethic: “How do we do it? Think ‘what would The American Professional do?’, and that’s what you do.” So, of course it became the name of the band. That’s what “The American Professional” would do. David’s a partner at Reed Smith now. Not even the least bit surprising.

SFBG: How did you start licensing your music to TV shows? Does it change your writing to be thinking about the possibility of a show wanting to use a song? Are there bands whose model you’re following here? I’m thinking about They Might Be Giants, who’ve done stuff for The Daily Show and Malcolm in the Middle but not, say, beer commercials.

CL: I get to approach that from two angles. We’ve licensed our existing music to several indie films and network TV shows, but I also founded a boutique music house (we call it a “music cottage” sometimes) Jingle This! with my longtime friend John Schulte. We make bespoke music for all sorts of stuff. I love hearing a well-thought out placement, especially when it’s a semi-obscure song or a deep album track, but I do tire of people attaching really famous, popular songs to products. I totally understand the power of it, but it makes me sad to hear people relying on the spectrum of emotions that accompanies a particular song and then sort of jump its train. I think it’s much more challenging, and if it works, rewarding, to make an original piece.

They Might Be Giants are a perfect example of doing it right, yes. They’re so insanely creative and versatile, but there’s always a thread of their sound in there, however intangible that may be. I like the way The 88’s music gets used. They do the theme for Community and they’ve had a ton of stuff licensed, all to great effect, I think.I still don’t know how we initially got approached by Nickelodeon to use our stuff in Zoey:101 and Drake and Josh. It was kind of like manna. Very mysterious. Very, very nice, but still mysterious. So that said, I don’t feel like it serves anybody to go chasing after licensing opportunities by attempting to make music that you think will be in demand. I feel like if you keep your head down, dig in, and make something that truly is a reflection of your own take on things, even if it’s done in character sometimes, it’s going to resonate with somebody, somewhere, and that will make it attractive for total, mind numbing, wealth-creating exploitation.

SFBG: Do you think there’s such a thing as “selling out” anymore, as a musician?

CL: I can’t conjure up what would constitute “selling out” these days, especially for somebody just hitting the scene now. I guess if a band got sponsored by Eli Lily and started writing songs cryptically about the benefits of Cymbalta and passing it off as a real band, that might be a little screwed up. Actually, that kind of sounds like fun to me. Don’t steal that idea.

I do, however, get a little sick of hearing The Who’s songs in every version of CSI, but hey, that’s their business.

SFBG: What’s next for the American Professionals? Touring?

CL: Yes. We like to take little quick and dirty regional excursions. We’re hitting the midwest in the spring, and then up and down our lovely coast after that.

SFBG: What other SF/Bay Area bands do you admire?

CL: There’s an insane amount of world class music here right now. Even just in the circle we run in we have The Real Numbers, The Corner Laughers, The Bye Bye Blackbirds, Agony Aunts, and my band crush, Trevor Childs and the Beholders. Those fuckwads are so ridiculously good, and they keep getting together, breaking up, blah blah blah. It’s maddening. It’s hard not to get puffed up with pride that we have Chuck Prophet walking among us here. I got all fanboy on him and clammed up when I was standing next to him at the Great American a few months ago. I had just been on a Temple Beautiful jag and was in awe.

SFBG: What’s the #1 San Francisco meal you couldn’t live without?

CL: Oh, that’s a toughie. I used to be in food and bev so we ate out a lot. I have so many food memories seared into my brain, it’s hard to pick even ten of those. We live right up the street from Swan Oyster Depot. If I had to nail it down to one experience, it’d have to be just plopping down at that little corner of heaven and strapping on the feed bag. Cheryl doesn’t like any seafood at all (nothing! zip!) so any time we have out of town guests and she’s at work, I grab them by the collar and drag them down there.
The American Professionals
With Felsen and the Tender Few
Wed/29, 8:30pm, $10
Bottom of the Hill
www.bottomofthehill.com

The basics

Michael Redmond

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January 21, 2014

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culture@sfbg.com

BALLIN’ ON A BUDGET

This week features some smaller openings around town, plus new places to go for brunch, and, how charming, they’re not all gonna leave you broke. Besides, some of us self-employed types are still reeling from those pesky tax quarterlies that were just due, blergh.

Pizza-man-about-town Jeff Krupman (aka the PizzaHacker, known for his FrankenWeber mobile pizza oven) has pulled it on over and has been softly opening his first brick-and-mortar spot in La Lengua-Bernal, aptly named PizzaHacker (3299 Mission, SF. www.thepizzahacker.com). He’s keeping the menu pared down, with pies like a classic margherita, although some have fun names and ingredient combos like the Yo Vinny (with marinated onions, Mama Lil’s pickled goat horn peppers, 4505 hot Italian sausage, tomato sauce, mozzarella), and the Rocket Man (arugula, garlic, mozzarella, farm egg, lemon juice, chili paste).

For now, pizzas are $15 during the opening weeks — but the pricing may change a bit in the future, just FYI. There’s also a killer salad, check it out. The space is pretty bare bones, with seating at picnic tables or the bar. Yay, there’s local beer and wine too. It’s mostly open Thu–Sun at 5:30pm, but check out the schedule on the website or on Twitter (@pizzahacker) before heading over.

Downtown workers have a couple new options to add to their lunchtime mix, or for post-work dinnertime. It’s OK, we know your fridge is empty. First up, Bun Mee (650 Market, SF. www.bunmee.co) has opened a second location, with the same menu as the original location on Fillmore. You can order Vietnamese sandwiches (you have to try the sloppy bun, trust, and get an egg on it!), along with salads, and other items that are good for eating at your desk, like rice and noodle bowls. And get a coconut sandwich cookie, because hey, you’re worth it. Open daily 10:30am–9pm.

There’s no denying that the burgers at Super Duper are pretty fricking good — it’s all about the double patty action on the Super burger. You now have another location to hit up: The latest location to open is in the Financial District at 98 Mission (www.superdupersf.com). Hours are Mon–Fri 7am–8pm and Sat–Sun 11am–6pm.

You dig brunch? You’re a San Franciscan, of course you do. One new brunch service that was just added to our scene is on Saturdays at St. Vincent (1270 Valencia, SF. www.stvincentsf.com) in the Mission. Come by noon–3pm for an East Coast fave like scrapple with fried eggs, or a new-fangled rye waffle with mixed winter citrus, pecans, hickory syrup, and sour cream. Also very au courant SF: a variety of toast toppings on country bread, like cultured butter with persimmon jam. Oysters on the half shell, yep. And more wine and tasty beers than you’d know what to do with! Start with some coffee from Bicycle Coffee Co., however. Pace yourself.

Also in the Mission: the folks at Hi Lo (3416 19th St., SF. www.hilobbqsf.com) are serving Sunday brunch (11am–2:30pm), and this menu is not gonna let you be hungry for long. You’ll find some Southern-inspired numbers, like shrimp and grits with andouille sausage and chicken fried steak and eggs, plus classics like a Benedict with house-cured ham. Those looking for lighter choices — i.e. people on a January diet — can opt for house-smoked salmon on lavash or fruit with yogurt. Lemon-ricotta pancakes: always a win. There’s a selection of brunch cocktails, like a jerked Bloody Mary with pork fat–washed rye, Caribbean and house BBQ spice, heirloom tomato, and Youk’s hot sauce. Dude. There are also three “hair of the dog” shot specials for $7 for those who need some healing, stat. Woof.

Marcia Gagliardi is the founder of the weekly tablehopper e-column; subscribe for more at www.tablehopper.com. Get her app: Tablehopper’s Top Late-Night Eats. On Twitter: @tablehopper.

Jack of All Trades Oakland

Maria Poblet

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January 9, 2014

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Shop local, shop unique at Jack of All Trades Market at Jack London Square this Saturday!

Over 100+ local craft and antique vendors, underground food startups, mobile fashion trucks and more. Plus: live music, craft beer, and food trucks!

Click here to win a $100 shopping spree! See more at JackofAllTradesOakland.com.

Saturday, January 11 from 11am-5pm @ Jack London Square, Oakland

Theater Listings: January 8 – 14, 2014

Michael Redmond

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January 7, 2014

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

THEATER

OPENING

Major Barbara ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-140. Previews Wed/8-Sat/11, 8pm; Sun/12, 7pm. Opens Jan 15, 8pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 8pm (Jan 21, show at 7pm; additional shows Jan 22 and 29, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Feb 2. American Conservatory Theater performs a new production of George Bernard Shaw’s political comedy.

The Speakeasy Undisclosed location (ticket buyers receive a text with directions), SF; www.thespeakeasysf.com. $60-90 (add-ons: casino chips, $5; dance lessons, $10). Opens Fri/10, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Runs Thu-Sat, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Through March 15. Boxcar Theatre presents Nick A. Olivero’s re-creation of a Prohibition-era saloon, resulting in an “immersive theatrical experience involving more than 35 actors, singers, and musicians.”

ONGOING

Amaluna Big Top at AT&T Park, Third Street at Terry A. Francois Blvd, SF; www.cirquedusoliel.com. $50-175. Wed/8-Sat/11, 8pm (also Thu/9-Sat/11, 4:30pm); Sun/12, 1, 4:30. Cirque de Soleil is back in town, this time bringing its Tempest-inspired Amaluna to the big top set up outside AT&T Park. Touted for being a celebration of “women [sic] power,” it seems initially odd that the design elements are so focused on the male peacock feather — all greens and blues and graceful, with curving “fronds” rising up from the stage. Jungle sounds chirp in the background as a bevy of Amazonian women in bejeweled headdresses and a mischievous lizard-man circulate the room until the show starts with the lovely abstraction of a floating red cloud of translucent fabric dancing in a single beam of light. The flimsy plotline is forgettable, a coming-of-age and courtship tale between the island’s young princess, Miranda (Iuliia Mykhailova) and a shipwrecked young Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin), though the parallel courtship between the two comic figures of Jeeves (Nathalie Claude) and Deeda (Shereen Hickman) provides a bit of levity and a novel use for footballs. The most realized character is probably Cali (Victor Kee), the half-lizard, whose prehensile tail and neon body paint give him an otherworldly allure, but it’s the aerialist goddesses and fierce embodiments of the storm that are most memorable from an acrobatic point-of-view, and Lara Jacobs’ unique balancing act from a meditative one. (Gluckstern)

Avenue Q New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed/8-Sat/11, 8pm; Sun/12, 2pm. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the Tony-winning comedy.

The Book of Mormon Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-120. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 1 and 6:30pm. Through Jan 19. When approaching the oeuvre of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, it’s best to check your political correctness at the door. That’s certainly no less true of their 2011 Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, co-penned with Robert Lopez (of Avenue Q fame), despite the clean-scrubbed appearance of their fumbling albeit well-intentioned missionary protagonists. Sent to Uganda for two years, top mission pupil Elder Price (Nic Rouleau) and his clumsy but affable partner Elder Cunningham (A.J. Holmes) are faced with a village oppressed by a scenery-chewing warlord, a demoralized coterie of fellow missionaries who have yet to have a successful conversion, and their own fraught, odd-couple dynamic. Rouleau’s Price is an appropriate blend of smarm, charm, and secret self-doubt while Holmes excels in his portrayal of a perennial-loser-turned-prophet (his power ballad-esque solo in “Man Up” is one of the show’s best). Of their hosts, the wry Mafala (James Vincent Meredith) and his sweet but strong-willed daughter Nabulungi (Syesha Mercado) get the most stage time, but it’s the crude and caustic General (David Aron Damane) who grabs the most attention. The gleefully profane “Hasa Diga Eebowai,” a Forbidden Zone-style “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”, and the deliriously blasphemous “Joseph Smith, American Moses,” round out the entertaining, and strangely informative, score. Though it’s (very) unlikely to convert you to the Church of Latter-Day Saints, there’s a good chance you’ll want to convert to the church of Parker and Stone, if you haven’t already. (Gluckstern)

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Oy of Sex Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Jan 18. Comedian Alicia Dattner performs her solo show, based on her stories from her own life and love addiction.

Road Show Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-30. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Jan 19. This Stephen Sondheim musical has suspiciously gone by several previous names, like someone on the lam: Gold! (in one incarnation), Wiseguys (in a workshop form), Bounce (in still another production), and then Road Show (in the revised form that was finally presented at New York’s Public Theater in 2008). It gets its first Bay Area airing in this unevenly cast but not uninteresting staging by Theatre Rhinoceros and artistic director John Fisher. No fan of the great Sondheim will want to miss this, no matter what problems it may have structurally (and it has problems structurally) or in performance (it has those too). Given the context of Sondheim’s brilliant career and unmistakable genius, Road Show proves an intriguing evening even where it disappoints. Set in the opening decades of the 20th century, it’s the story of Addison Mizner (a boyishly gruff and musically solid Bill Fahrner, well known veteran of 42nd Street Moon productions) and his somewhat rascally brother Wilson (a sure Rudy Guerrero), charged by their late father (a nicely animated Kim Larsen) with making something of themselves. This instigates their tempestuous entrepreneurial journey from the Alaskan Gold Rush to the Florida Real Estate boom of the 1920s, with trips home to their devoted, doting mother (Kathryn Wood) whenever they fail or fall out with one another. Musical director and piano accompanist Dave Dobrusky (also of musical mavens 42nd Street Moon) gets hardworking performances from the cast (some of whom can nevertheless stray at times much further than the rambling brothers at the center of the story). But the love-hate relationship between the brothers, or the doomed big romance between Addison and a handsome scion of an industrial magnate (an inconsistent but charming Michael Doppe), never makes much dramatic sense. Everyone seems too disagreeable to be considered somehow irresistible. However, some shaky singing aside, there is much to admire in the musical — it’s a Sondheim after all, witty and often beguiling to the ear and imagination. But if Sondheim’s music and lyrics are the road, John Weidman’s book is all over the place. By the end it seems as if a four-hour saga had been folded up like a roadmap along all the wrong creases, a doubtful package best tucked once again into an out-of-the-way drawer. (Avila)

Storefront Church San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Wed/8-Thu/9, 7pm; Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm (also Sat/11, 3pm). Weighty themes come leavened by sharp comedy and engaging characters in this 2012 play from New York’s John Patrick Shanley (Doubt), now enjoying a strong and lively Bay Area premiere at SF Playhouse in director Joy Carlin’s well cast production. Ethan, a gregarious retired accountant and professed secular Jew (a hilarious and endearing Ray Reinhardt) tries to get some relief for his Puerto Rican wife, Jessie (a bubbly Gloria Weinstock), who is perilously behind on her loan payments. But it’s like getting the proverbial blood from a stone during his meeting with her humorless and immobile — indeed, partly paralyzed — loan officer (a quietly shattered Rod Gnapp). Ethan appeals to morality; loan officer Reed sticks to the rules of the system. Enter Donaldo (an admirably sure yet understated Gabriel Marin), the Bronx’s upstanding borough president and the son of Jessie’s old friend. Donaldo has much bigger business with the bank underway (a proposed mall deal that will bring jobs, if at the expense of local character) and at first begs off — until he learns his mother has co-signed the loan. Soon, Donaldo is visiting the source of Jessie’s money problems: a somber Pentecostal preacher and Katrina-refugee named Chester (a gently solemn Carl Lumbly) who has installed a traffic-less church in the storefront below her apartment but remains himself paralyzed by depression and uncertainty. Donaldo, himself a preacher’s son, and Chester soon engage in a fiery and captivating debate that turns on the contradictions between moral conviction and worldly compromise. From there on, a fractured congregation of sorts begins to form around the preacher and Donaldo, including the unctuous yet aloof CEO of the bank (played with bounding confidence by a fine Derek Fischer). It all leads to a rousingly funny and tender scene that makes good on the season’s usual lip service to fraternal feeling and communal values. (Avila)

The Tempest Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.doitliveproductions.com. $15. Thu and Sun, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Jan 18. At the outset of Do It Live! Productions’ staging of Shakespeare’s late play, scenic designer Yusuke Soi sums up a serene faraway landscape in an exquisite single stroke — a sloping, flat-topped dodecagon of buffed wood occupying the vast center of the small stage. Wooden hinges provide several footholds for climbing, and a thick rope dropping from the flies allows rapid motion across the surface, down which actors can also slide from peak to floor with practically the velocity of a fall. That impressive structure is unfortunately the smoothest aspect of the production, however, since the unfurling of the story and speech is by contrast too unsettled in co-directors Will Hand and Kenny Toll’s compact staging. They find opportunities here and there for the actors to take flight in dynamic relation to the set, but not as many as you might imagine, and the cast — led by a capable but somewhat colorless Bill Peters as Prospero — is not equally up to the dramatic flights either. Themes of revenge, subjugation, love, and service mingle fitfully here, without any clear distillation of the many-hued drama. The high comical scene with Stephano (Nick Medina), Trinculo (Anthony Agresti), and a terrified, then soused Caliban (a sinewy, tattooed Caleb Cabrera) comes off as one of the more effective scenes (thanks especially to Medina’s robust performance), but it stands out more by contrast than anything else. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-35. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Feb 2. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Note: review from an earlier run of the show. (Avila)

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed/8-Thu/9, 7pm; Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm. Shotgun Players performs Anthony Neilson’s comic romp set in “a sensual Edwardian world of top hats, fantastical puppets, and flash powder.”

Sherlock Holmes: The Broken Mirror Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Jan 26. Jeff Garrett portrays all the characters (Sherlock, Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Moriarty…) in this adaptation of William Gillette’s Holmes play.

Tristan & Yseult Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $17.50-81. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Thu and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Jan 18); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Extended through Jan 18. Kneehigh presents an innovative take on the ancient love-triangle tale.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“After the Light” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.lissfaindance.org. Thu/9-Sat/11, 8pm; Sun/12, 2pm. $15-35. Liss Fain Dance presents its 2014 home season, featuring a world premiere.

“Attractive Camp” Lost Weekend Video, 1034 Valencia, SF; Facebook: Attractive Camp. Sun/12, 8pm. $10. Stand-up comedy with host Nicole Calasich and performers Caitlin Gill, Anna Serengina, Dave Ross, Scott Simpson, and Matt Lieb.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/11, Jan 19, 25, Feb 1, 8, 14, 16, 22, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Comedy Bottle” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Fri/10-Sat/11, 7pm. $10. Comedy with Enrique Casolla and Kyle McFadden.

Feinstein’s at the Nikko Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. Tom Wopat in “I’ve Got Your Number,” Thu/9, 8, $35-45. Cheyenne Jackson in “I’m Blue, Skies,” Fri/10, 8pm; Sat/11, 7pm, $50-65.

“FRESH Festival 2014” CounterPULSE UnderGround, 80 Turk, SF; www.artsbuildingconsortium.org. FRESH Perspectives community events, $5-10; performances, $15-20. Through Jan 19. Performances from Violeta Luna, Brontez Purnell, and Sara Kraft (Fri/10-Sat/11), and Abby Crain, Jess Curtis, Laura Arrington, and viv (Jan 17-18). Community events (dates and times vary) include music and dance mixers, showcases, discussions, and more. The festival also includes classes ($400-750) for performers.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Feb 7, March 7, and April 4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

“Sea of Reeds” Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California, SF; www.jccsf.org. Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm (also Sat/11, 3pm). $25-35. Josh Kornbluth performs his solo comedy about his decision to get bar-mitzvahed at age 52 — in Israel.

“Shotz: Unisex” Tides Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.amiosnyc.org. Tue/14, 8pm. $10 (includes a beer). AmiosSF presents six short plays, five minutes each, related to the theme “Unisex” and including the phrase “such amazing options” and “a reference to a stop sign of some sort.”

BAY AREA

“Buddy Club Children’s Shows” JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut, Berk; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun/12, 11am-noon. $8. With The Bubble Lady. Also Sun/12, 11:30am-12:30pm, $8, Kanbar Center for the Performing Arts, 200 N. San Pedro, San Rafael. With the Comedy Pirate, Cap’n Jack Spareribs.

“reveries and elegies” Milkbar, Sunshine Biscuit Factory, 851 81st St, Oakl; www.maryarmentroutdancetheater.com. Sat/11-Sun/12 and Jan 18-19, 4:30pm; Jan 25-26, 4:45pm. $20. Mary Armentrout’s new site-specific project is timed to coincide with sundown on each performance day. *

Hole Lotta Love: Saturday night at SOMArts!

Sue Vaughan

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January 3, 2014

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Hole Lotta Love: Saturday night at SOMArts!

A pit under the floor becomes a wellspring for 100 performances over six hours at SOMArts this Saturday night

There’s a hole under the gallery floor at SOMArts. And art abhors a vacuum.

This century-old sand casting pit rests under a trap door, a leftover of the 17,000-square-foot venue’s industrial past. But this weekend the hatch is lifted and the hole becomes a generative site of time-based art making. Six hours will see more than 150 local artists delivering two-minute performances “for the hole” in a mini-marathon like no other.

This fourth iteration of SOMArts’ 100 Performances for the Hole features a rowdy roster of artists working their inspiration from across a wide spectrum of disciplinary backgrounds: Guillermo Gómez-Peña with Anja Flower and Jacques LeFemme; Alec White and Baruch Porras-Hernandez; Paige Tighe; Annie Danger; Peter L. Stein; Trina Merry’s Art Alive Gallery; La Chica Boom, DavEnd and Craig Calderwood; Sara Kraft; Mitsu Okubo; the list goes on — and on.

It also includes a not-too-pricey VIP lounge featuring complimentary beer from the Ninkasi Brewing Company.

If you can’t be there in person, SOMArts will stream the event live on its website (at least those portions suitable for broadcast under BAVC standards), and public access station SF Commons (Comcast Channel 76, Astound Channel 30) will also broadcast.

100 Performances for the Hole
Sat/4, 5:58–midnight, $12-$25
934 Brannan, SF
www.somarts.org

Bad company

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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January 2, 2014

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM Considering the relative infrequency of theater-to-film translations today, it’s a bit of a surprise that Tracy Letts had two movies made from his plays before he even got to Broadway. Bug and Killer Joe proved a snug fit for director William Friedkin (in 2006 and 2011, respectively), who well past age 70 experienced something of a career resurgence from them. Those modern Grand Guignols got around, but were too outré for the kind of mainstream success accorded 2007’s August: Osage County, which won the Pulitzer, ran 18 months on Broadway (an eternity for a non-musical at present), and toured the nation.

As a result, August was destined — perhaps doomed — to be a big movie, the kind that shoehorns a distracting array of stars into an ensemble piece, playing jes’ plain folk. On stage, this Long Day’s Journey Into Fuck All Y’All was a juicy-steak drama meal, chockablock with family dysfunction, colorful cussin’, shocking revelations, and ghoulish as well as broad humor. It was like a vintage Sam Shepard text crossed with an old-school three-act “well-made play.” It was also three and a half hours long.

To his credit, Letts’ own screenplay adaptation clocks in at almost exactly two hours, a considerable reduction that nonetheless doesn’t feel gutted. Whether it feels like a movie, though, is another question. What seemed bracingly rude as well as somewhat traditional under the proscenium lights just looks like a lot of reheated Country Gothic hash, and the possibility of profundity you might’ve been willing to consider before is now completely off the menu. If you haven’t seen August before (or even if you have), there may be sufficient fun watching stellar actors chew the scenery with varying degrees of panache. But the play exposes itself in a medium it might have been most suitable for 50 years before it was written. (Not that the censors would have allowed it then.)

Gorgon matriarch Violet Weston (Meryl Streep, who else) is dying of cancer, albeit not fast enough — she’s still quite capable of driving long-suffering, shot-pounding spouse Beverly (Shepard) to distraction, and all other “loved ones” to a safe geographic distance away. Nonetheless, when Bev simply exits their rambling rural Oklahoma home with no apparent intention of returning, the scattered troops are called in for reinforcement.

Pissed-off prodigal daughter Barbara (Julia Roberts) returns in the company of a husband (Ewan McGregor) and teenage daughter (Abigail Breslin) she’s well on her way to alienating just like mommy did. Middle child Karen (Juliette Lewis) is a man-crazy ninny entering another bad marriage, this one to a Master of the Universe, Florida-style (Dermot Mulroney). Family doormat Ivy (Julianne Nicholson), the third sister, stuck around to masochistically endure Violet’s ingratitude and caustic pity but might be plotting her escape at last. Last and least, there’s Auntie Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale), a viperous chatterbox whose husband (Chris Cooper) self-medicates with beer and TV, while their son (Benedict Cumberbatch) is treated like an even bigger loser than he is.

You know the beats: Late-night confessions, drunken hijinks, disastrous dinners, secrets (infidelity, etc.) spilling out everywhere like loose change from moth-eaten trousers. Even at its much greater stage length, August was overstuffed, though what seemed excessive in a mostly good way then now simply plays as a pileup of clichés and contrivances enlivened by some good lines and snappy performances. Of course the dialogue sounds ornately “theatrical” in this more naturalistic presentation. But director John Wells, a veteran TV writer-producer whose prior feature was 2010’s decent corporate-downsizing drama The Company Men, doesn’t make anything seem very natural. (If Nebraska lives and breathes its locations, this movie might as well have been shot on a studio back lot for all the authenticity earned.)

Nor can he magically weld this cast into a credible “family.” Lewis and Martindale get a lot out of their comically vulgar characters, but are ultimately too one-note. Mulroney delivers a very sharp caricature with less visible effort; Cumberbatch and Nicholson are OK as wallflowers amid invasive stinkweeds. Cooper is the kind of actor who can manage a great deal while seemingly doing very little, while McGregor is the type who can sometimes look like he’s working awfully hard to make absolutely no impression whatsoever. The film’s success story, I suppose, is Roberts: She seems very comfortable with her character’s bitter anger, and the four-letter words tumble past those jumbo lips like familiar friends.

On the downside, there’s Streep, who’s a wizard and a wonder as usual yet also in that mode supporting the naysayers’ view that such conspicuous technique prevents our getting lost in her characters. In the national touring stage production, octogenarian Estelle Parsons was manifestly a cranky old lady — you worried for her going up and down those three flights of stairs, and gasped at her not-at-all-cute potty mouth. Streep acts the shit out of being cranky and old; one suspects between takes she’s probably running triathalons and saving whales. She pulls out the stops, but maybe they should have been left in. If Streep can do anything, then logic decrees that include being miscast.

Still, she’s a lucky woman alongside Misty Upham, who plays that eternal most-thankless role: The largely mute, ever-observant “ethnic” (here, Native American) domestic-nurse-helper who graces all these yelling white people with her quiet compassion, swooping in to save the innocent and comfort the comfortless when necessary. (She also cooks so well you half expect magical Like Water for Chocolate-style dishes to heal all wounds.) Among the things August has lost in translation is the pretense of unsentimentality. When Gustavo Santaolalla’s schmaltzy score drips like molasses over Upham’s payoff moments, you know it’s gone way too far in the other direction. *

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY opens January 10 in San Francisco.

This Week’s Picks: December 25 – 31, 2013

Erica Hanna

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December 24, 2013

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Spawning the “Condescending Wonka” meme

WEDNESDAY 12/25

Contemporary Jewish Museum Community Day

For those who don’t celebrate Christmas (and for those who do, but know the kids will have ripped through their Santa harvest and be climbing the walls by noon), the Contemporary Jewish Museum opens its doors for its annual free Community Day. Here’s your chance to check out new exhibit “Frog and Toad and the World of Arnold Lobel,” filled with illustrations from Lobel’s gentle tales, including 1970’s Caldecott Honor-winning Frog and Toad are Friends. In addition, there’ll be a “Frog and Toad Studio” for crafting character puppets, and performances by puppet-wielding group the Pop Ups (at 11:30am, 1pm, and 2:30pm; space limited, with tickets available on a first-come, first-serve basis). (Cheryl Eddy)

11am-4pm, free

Contemporary Jewish Museum

736 Mission, SF

www.thecjm.org

THURSDAY 12/26

Kwanzaa San Francisco

Celebrate the seven principles of Kwanzaa — unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith — at San Francisco’s eighth annual honoring of the week-long holiday. Each event takes place at a different venue (most are in the Fillmore or Bayview neighborhoods), and each will feature both candle-lighting ceremony and live entertainment, with an eclectic array that includes a reggae band, spoken word artists, a gospel choir, dance performers, and more. (Eddy)

Through Jan 1, free

Today, noon

San Francisco City Hall

1 Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SF

Also today, 7pm, West Bay Conference Center

1290 Fillmore, SF

www.kwanzaasanfrancisco.com

FRIDAY 12/27

Blatz

Some know Blatz as an awful, awful beer. Others know Blatz as a ’90s East Bay band. As 924 Gilman rats, they played punk that incorporated anarcho and crust elements. The band existed from 1989 to 1998, and the band’s pinnacle was a split with fellow Gilman-ites Filth — appropriately named The Shit Split. Now they reunite for one evening of aged punk bliss, to support a fellow aging punk in his time of need. Mike-O the Psycho, of Filth, has cancer. Tonight, Blatz, along with Special Forces, Death March, Aspbergers, and World of Shit, take the stage to help offset Psycho’s medical bills. Come help support a Gilman rat in need. (Erin Dage)

With Special Forces, Death March, Aspbergers, World of Shit

7pm, $5-$20 (plus $2 annual membership)

942 Gilman, Berk.

www.924gilman.org

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

No, not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the garish Tim Burton-Johnny Depp take on Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s book. We’re talking ’bout the 1971 version — scripted by Dahl, directed by Mel Stuart, and starring Gene Wilder as the eccentric, exacting candy maker. Wilder’s iconic performance has proven enduringly popular — even spawning the versatile “Condescending Wonka” meme — but the rest of the film (chockablock with surreal elements and singing Oompa Loompas) holds up admirably, too. If you haven’t yet checked out a movie at the gorgeous, Art Deco Paramount, here’s your chance. Snozzberries never looked (or tasted) so good. (Eddy)

8pm, $5

Paramount Theatre

2025 Broadway, Oakl.

www.ticketmaster.com

Devil Makes Three

For more than a decade, Santa Cruz trio Devil Makes Three has blended classic country, ragtime, bluegrass, folk, and more with its own fiery attitude and approach, creating a sound and style that captures the magic feel of a dusty old 78, but with an immediacy and newness that translates from records to raucous live shows without missing a beat. The band’s latest album, I’m A Stranger Here, was produced by Buddy Miller and showcases the group’s infectious, booze-stained lyrics and American roots-influenced music — a potent combination that just might lead you to think its members made some sort of a deal down at the crossroads. (Sean McCourt)

9pm, $25

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.thefillmore.com

“Well-Strung: The Singing String Quartet”

Hey girl. I know you think you’re not that into classical music. But Mozart’s white wig had nothing on our slick ‘dos. Chopin may have owned a pistol, but we’ve got two guns each on our string-caressing arms, and they come ready-cocked. Vivaldi made music for Four Seasons, but the four of us can keep you warm all year long, as long as you don’t mind a little serenading with an accompaniment from our violins, viola, and cello. How about some Adele? Rihanna? Yeah, we can do that with a bow, and unlike Legolas, our bows make love, not war. Did you know that a quartet is just another word for a foursome? Girl, we’re Well-Strung, and we’re, well … strung, so you should check us out at Feinstein’s this weekend. (Kaylen Baker)

Tonight, 8pm; Sat/28, 7pm, $25-$40 ($20 food and beverage minimum)

Feinstein’s at the Nikko

Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF

www.feinsteinssf.com

SATURDAY 12/28

“America’s Next Top Bachelor Housewife Celebrity Hoarder Makeover Star Gone Wild!”

With a show contained under the best combo-platter title since 1996 Wayans brothers classic Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, the Kinsey Sicks (“America’s Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet”) return to San Francisco to celebrate 20 years in the comedy-crooning biz. Armed with sky-high hair and smooth, four-part harmony, Rachel, Winnie, Trixie, and Trampolina negotiate the world of reality TV — a topic they can sing about with authority, since they made a memorable appearance on America’s Got Talent. This Castro gig will feature special guests, plus a moderated discussion presented by the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center of the SF Public Library, which will host a Kinsey Sicks exhibit next year. (Eddy)

8pm, $25-40 Castro Theatre

420 Castro, SF

www.cityboxoffice.com

“Champions of Magic Live!”

It sure was a busy year for prestidigitation, with high-profile TV appearances by David Blaine and Criss Angel, plus films like Now You See Me, Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay, and (my personal favorite) Magic Camp. But nothing can really take the place of seeing magic performed live, particularly when it’s done with such skill and flourish as the award-winning posse collected in this show: SoCal’s Christopher Hart and Dana Daniels, Las Vegas’ Jason Andrews and Mark Kornhauser, and SF’s own Jade — the lone female in the group. If that’s not enough to lure you, a promo video suggests props will include a talking dog. Abracadabra, indeed! (Eddy)

Tonight, 7:30pm; Sun/29, 2pm, $20-$60

Julia Morgan Theater

2640 College, Berk

www.championsofmagiclive.com

Club Chuckles 10-Year Anniversary Bash

Any comedy night founded by Hemlock Tavern booker Anthony Bedard — keeper of the hilarious @Folder_Rock Twitter account, famed for highlighting cringe-worthy excerpts from band press releases — is destined to be a good time. So it’s no surprise that Club Chuckles (which had to instill a “10-drink maximum policy in the wake of a heckler uprising”) is still going strong after a decade. Tonight, toast the comedy night that hosted early gigs by future stars like Reggie Watts and Amy Schumer by gathering ’round for an all-star gaggle of current CC faves: Chris Thayer, Donny Divanian, Caitlin Gill, Sean Keane, Jesse Elias, Joey Devine, Couples, musical guests Freakotronic, and others. Here’s to 10 more years! But not 10 more drinks. At least not in one night. (Eddy)

9pm, $5

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

www.hemlocktavern.com

SUNDAY 12/29

BL’AST!

While many of the early hardcore punk bands to emerge from California came from established music centers and big cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, BL’AST! formed in the early ’80s in Santa Cruz, and quickly started releasing music on influential SST Records. The band ultimately met its demise in 1990, and performed a handful of reunion shows in 2001 — but now Bay Area fans have the chance to hear new music and see the group live once again — original members singer Clifford Dinsmore and guitarist Mike Neider got back together earlier this year and remixed a batch of old, unreleased tracks with Dave Grohl. The result, released as the excellent Blood, found them returning in fine, ferocious form. (McCourt)

With Neurosis, Yob, the Body

8pm, $30

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com

TUESDAY 12/31

Japanese New Year’s Bell-Ringing Ceremony

Tonight, you’ll be knocking back champers like a champ, but there’s something to be said for devoting some of your pre-debauchery New Year’s Eve time to quiet reflection. Or not-so-quiet reflection, in the case of the Asian Art Museum’s 28th annual ceremonial bell ringing, in which a 2,100 pound, 16th-century Japanese bronze bell clangs loudly 108 times. Why the seemingly random number? Some Buddhists believe that’s the number of earthly temptations that must be overcome to achieve total peace of mind. For everyone else, the ceremony is more symbolic; there’ll be a purification ritual led by Rev. Gengo Akiba, followed by a hands-on bell bonanza to help participants “leave behind the bad experiences, wrong deeds, and ill luck of the previous year.” As you might expect, this clean-slate opportunity is a popular one, so make sure you arrive by noon to get a chance to participate. (Eddy)

11:30am-1:30pm (arrive by noon), free with museum admission ($8-$12)

Asian Art Museum 200 Larkin, SF

www.asianart.org