Burning Man

Hot sexy events: April 13-19

Andrew Lam
-
1
Hot sexy events: April 13-19

Where better to talk dirty than on the techno-verse? Nowhere, that’s where. Our fave SF sex blogger – c’mon, besides ourselves — Fleur De Lis SF makes an appearance at this used-to-be (before it expanded it occasional East Bay nights) monthly storytelling event, as does Reid Mihalko, a sexpert who has made appearances on Tyra Banks’ TV show, in addition to other seemingly unlikely places for a perv like him. Hot tip: Fleur De Lis just wrote about how Mihalko ahem, enjoyed meeting her the other day at Monika Thomas’ Sex Geek Potluck – knowing these two, could a round two be far behind? 

Bawdy Storytelling: Taking Dirty and Technology

It’s shocking how often people use the Internet these days for things that don’t involve sex. Well, not these folks. This month’s Bawdy has assembled a top shelf lineup of pervs, including Allison Moon, creator of Burning Man’s home for queer women, Camp Beaverton, and as-of-recently author of a new lesbian werewolf novel. Everyone will be talking about how they’ve used technology to get super viral. Sexting during the event encouraged.  

Weds/13 8 p.m., $10

The Blue Macaw

2565 Mission, SF

www.bawdystorytelling.com


“Advanced CBT: Ready for the Ride?”

EMS/TENS-type electrical stimulation, cock and ball bondage, how to torture and tease your partner – who is ready for a walk on the wild side? Surely, that would be the attendees of this workshop, led by Gabriele Hoff, who has interviewed over 1200 couples and individuals for her research into the topic. 

Weds/13 6-8 p.m., $20-25

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com 


Eddie Dane memorial

Good night, sweet clown. Eddie Dane was a lot of things to a lot of people in the burlesque community, but a bummer to mourn – never! Help the tassel-twirlers say goodbye to one of the country’s great Burly Q troupe leaders at this free memorial burlesque revue, why don’t you?

Thurs/14 8 p.m., free

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.hubbahubbarevue.com


International Ms. Leather 25th Anniversary weekend

So very much for leatherwomen going on this weekend! The International Ms. Leather celebration hits town on Thursday, and if speed tricking, uniform parties, and of course, the yearly competitions for Ms. Leather and Ms. Bootblack are up your alley, you’d be best served by getting down that of this weekend-long celebration of women in hides. 

Thurs/14-Sun/17, $25-155

www.imsl.org


Kinky Salon: Prohibition

You know what wasn’t outlawed during Prohibition? That’s right, ukuleles. So dance I say, to the organic pluckings of Five Cent Coffee, just one of the live music and performances acts that will be going on at Kinky Salon – while a building full of new friends have sex all around you. Kazoo orgy? 

Sat/16 10 p.m.-late, $25-35 members only

Mission Control 

www.missioncontrolsf.org


“Let’s Talk About Sex”

Lee Harrington thinks you – yes you! – deserve to live the sex life of your dreams. To that end, he’s holding this frank discussion about what turns us all on when no one is looking. It’s all about airing your dirty laundry, and feeling good about it. Are you in?

Tues/19 7:30 p.m., $15-25 sliding scale

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org

 

Is Burning Man going communal or selling out?

Sasha Cuttler
-
60

“Man on the move,” the headline I gave to my current Guardian article and an extended personal blog post on the announcement that Burning Man will next month form a nonprofit group to eventually run the event, raises a number of interesting issues that are likely to be vigorously debated within this huge, active burner community in the coming months and years.

How should Burning Man be governed? What is the event worth – if it can even be quantified – and who created and should benefit from that value? Are Black Rock City LLC board members being selfless stewards of the culture in giving up control or are they being greedy control freaks in holding on for six more years and expecting a big payoff in the end? Or, like much about this dynamic culture, is the truth somewhere in the middle?

Event founder Larry Harvey’s big announcement last week, made during a speech that was unusual for its insights into the thoughts and internal dynamics of the BRC board, stressed how to value an event whose central ethos opposes such commodification.

“I thought it was time the owners stepped out from behind the veil of secrecy,” Harvey told me during a follow-up interview this week. He repeatedly emphasizes the benevolence of a corporate board voluntarily giving up control over its assets and revenue stream. “What we’re doing, as far as normal capitalism, is aberrant…What we’re doing is giving up a lot of money.”

But the way that Harvey is trying to frame this issue seems antithetical to how most burners see the event and culture that they’ve spent decades helping to create, from using the term “owners” to describe the six board members to suggesting Burning Man has any relation to “normal capitalism,” even to the claim that there’s “a lot of money” to give up, and that they might be more entitled to that money than the thousands of burners who have contributed their sweat equity to the event.

“We have people who have 10,000 volunteer hours at Burning Man,” says Chicken John Rinaldi, a longtime burner and critic of how Harvey and the board have run the event, believing that they have always overstated their importance considering Black Rock City is built each year almost entirely by its participants. “This event throw itself.”

Yet Harvey and the other board members, such as Michael Mikel and Marian Goodell, insist that the board plays an important role in shepherding the event and the culture that has grown up around it, which is why they plan on waiting three years to turn control of the event over to the new nonprofit, the Burning Man Project, and another three years after that until they liquidate their ownership of the name and associated trademarks and are paid for their value.

“We want it to get on its feet and be able to raise money on its own,” Harvey said of the nonprofit. The board is also creating a committee called the Philosophical Center “to ensure the cultural continuity as we pour Burning Man into a new vessel.” Mikel said he insisted on that because “for me, it’s not about the art. It’s really about the culture.”

The nonprofit board will be comprised of the six LLC board members and at least seven more members that those six members will select, and Harvey said they are doing interviews now, including talking to many longtime burners who were represented at last week’s summit of Burning Man regional leaders from around the world. Chicken said it was offensive that Harvey would tell this gathering that it would take six years before they’d have full control over Burning Man.

“What they’re saying is it’s going to take years to pass the torch over, and they’re saying this to a room full of people who have been involved in Burning Man for decades,” Chicken said. He was particularly critical of Harvey’s statement that the board discussed coming up with a value for Burning Man and dividing that by six. “Once that comes out of someone’s mouth, the bets are off.”

Chicken’s conclusion: “They’ve turned Burning Man into a commodity. They’re selling the event.”

Burning Man doesn’t have much by way of assets now, and its roughly $12 million annual revenue stream from selling tickets goes almost entirely to staging the annual event and supporting the year-round operations of the organization.

But once the nonprofit forms up and starts taking tax-exempt donations and finding other ways of diversifying its revenue stream for the three years before the current board members cash out, Chicken predicts the board members will walk away with about $1 million each. “But I’m not going to let them get away with it,” pledged Chicken, who has already starting agitating and rabble-rousing in online forums, just as he did in 2004 when he launched the rebellion that became known as Borg2.

Harvey has confirmed the board members will walk away with well more than the $20,000 that they’re currently entitled to if they resign, “but we’ll have to work for a living,” he said. Mikel told me, “It’s never been about the money, for me it was there was no succession plan. I really want Burning Man to continue beyond my involvement with it.”

Yet they also said that the bitter divisions on the board have evaporated since the new plan was developed. “Now that we can all see the future,” Mikel said, “we’re getting along wonderfully.”

But Chicken says he’s determined not to let these six board members, who have been getting the highest salaries for the last six years anyway “simply for ordering the PortaPotties,” profit from an event he helped created that has always been been about communal effort and decommidified relationships.

“Burning Man should be a labor of love,” he said. “I think Burning Man should exist outside of commerce.”

Guardian City Editor Steven T. Jones is the author of The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture.

Photos of Larry Harvey from April 1 speech by

Ana Grillo Photography and Multimedia Productions

Man on the move

Andrew Lam
-
1
Man on the move

steve@sfbg.com

As the homegrown Burning Man festival and culture marks its 25th anniversary, Black Rock City LLC, the company that stages the annual event, is about to take a couple of big steps. Next month, organizers say it will move into a high-profile new headquarters on mid-Market Street and form a new nonprofit group to take over Burning Man.

Tickets to the weeklong festival, which takes place Aug. 28-Sept. 5 in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, have been selling at their fastest pace ever and the city is likely to exceed a population of 50,000. Symbolizing perhaps the biggest transitional year since 1996, when the LLC was formed and a more formal civic infrastructure was created, the eponymous Man will be in a new pose for the first time: striding across a chasm rather than standing still.

While the transitions have been in the works for years, event founder Larry Harvey publicly laid out the details for the first time on April 1, when he addressed a gathering of Burning Man regional representatives from around the world.

“I’m here tonight to talk to you about the next step for Burning Man,” Harvey told the crowd of about 150 regional representatives and another couple hundred burners, including Sup. Eric Mar, who attended the event last year for the first time. Sup. Jane Kim, who is sponsoring a controversial mid-Market tax exclusion zone that would benefit BRC and many other companies (see “Selling the Tenderloin,” March 30), appeared at the event briefly but didn’t stay for the whole speech.

Harvey then proceeded to talk for more than an hour, revealing often personal details about the bitter infighting among BRC’s six board members that followed lawsuits filed in 2006 by board member Michael Mikel and in early 2007 by John Law, an estranged founder of the modern event, over control of Burning Man’s trademarks and future (see “Burning Brand,” 1/6/07).

“It triggered a series of cascading events, and those began a rite of passage,” Harvey said, echoing this year’s Burning Man art theme, Rites of Passage.

With Mikel and Law forcing the question of what would become of the event, BRC realized it needed a new operating agreement, but the board members couldn’t agree on the fundamentals and ended up in mediation. “It began to look like everybody would lawyer up,” Harvey said. “It felt like the band was breaking up.”

They brought in corporate appraisers to “think about what the pie will fetch, then divide by six,” an idea that was as abhorrent to Harvey as it would certainly have been to the vast community of burners who have helped give the event its value over decades now.

“It was against everything we stood for, everything we had practiced,” he said. “How could we sell our life’s work like a commodity?”

Eventually, working with a committee of BRC senior employees that formed after relations on the board devolved, they decided to turn control of the event and its assets over to a new nonprofit group called The Burning Man Project.

“Why not act to change the world, a world that you won’t be in? And that’s what we want to do,” Harvey said, eliciting applause from the room. “We want to get out of running Burning Man. We want to move on.”

But it’s going to be a slow process. In May, he said the LLC will file papers to create the nonprofit, which will initially be run by the current board members and at least seven more directors selected by that board. In about three years, depending on how the new nonprofit forms up, the LLC will turn over management of Burning Man, while holding onto control of the logos and trademarks for another three years after that, Harvey said. And that’s when the six board members will officially cash out.

“We will liquidate our ownership interests and it will be for more than $20,000,” Harvey said, alluding to the sum promised to departing board member under the LLC’s original operating agreement, an amount he dismissed as “laughable.”

The slow, conditional transition and big potential payout were criticized by longtime burner and former mayoral candidate Chicken John Rinaldi, who led a 2004 rebellion against the board’s control over an event that is created mostly by its participants.

“We’ve gotta pay for their retirement for something they stole from us in the first place?” Rinaldi said. “They’re turning Burning Man into a commodity. They’re selling the event.”

Harvey, Mikel, and board member Marian Goodell say they are simply trying to safeguard Burning Man and ensure its longevity. “Nonprofits can go bad so the real challenge is creating a rugged framework,” Mikel said. “This thing needs to run beyond us.”

But even Rinaldi agreed with the move to Mid-Market, which Goodell said is good timing as BRC begins to create and shape the Burning Man Project. “We need to be in an urban environment to get a handle on what we need,” she said, noting how isolated their last two offices along Third Street have been. “We want to have a public face to the world.”

Guardian City Editor Steven T. Jones is the author of The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture.

 

St. Stupid’s Day Parade mocks economic and religious institutions

Sasha Cuttler
-
0

The 33rd Annual St. Stupid’s Day Parade careened through the Financial District this afternoon, with hundreds of colorful self-styled idiots offering spirited and incisive send-ups of corporate and religious power and clearly having a great time in the process.

The always lively April 1 countercultural ritual was infused by fabulous weather and a nearby gathering of Burning Man regional representatives from around the world, a conference at the Bently Reserve where head honcho Larry Harvey will be giving a heavily touted speech this evening in which he’s expected to announce the formation of a nonprofit group that will eventually take over Burning Man from Black Rock City LLC.

But it’s tough to upstage the First Church of the Last Laugh on its holiest of days, and the crew led the parade of costumed followers through some of its regular rituals, including the tightening of the lug nuts that connect old San Francisco to the new landfill at Battery and Bush streets and throwing socks at the old Pacific Stock Exchange Building.

Along the way, they stopped to make noise and jokes directed at the Federal Reserve, Well Fargo, Bank of America, and other titans of capitalism and corruption, offering chants that included “Go back to work” and “No more chanting.” Lobbies were raided and icons mocked, but with such a good nature and self-deprecating style that even the initially nervous-looking suits and security guards ended up smiling.

Happy St. Stupid’s Day, everyone, now go have some fun.

 

 

Books, borders, and official ridiculousness

Sasha Cuttler
-
10
Books, borders, and official ridiculousness

In the pantheon of ridiculousness going on in this country, this may not rate highly, but it seems telling enough to share anyway. For the last two months, I’ve been selling my new book, The Tribes of Burning Man, through my website: taking payments through PayPal, signing the books, and mailing through out through the Post Office, which is cheaper than FedEx or UPS for one-pound books.

It’s gone pretty well so far, with the exception of a couple empty envelopes being delivered and the books never found, which I’ve had to replace out of my pocket. But then today, I got one of the books I tried to send to a customer in Colorado (only one of the two I sent that day, mind you) back from USPS, with two stickers on it.

One says “Surface Transportation Only” and has a picture of a plane crossed out, and the other reads, “We regret that your mail was not collected or is being returned to you due to heightened security requirements. All mail that bears postage stamps and weighs more than 13 ounces MUST be taken by the customer to a retail service associate at the Post Office.”

I already have to go to the Post Office when I send my book to other countries and fill out a silly little US Customs form, and I’m told by customers that the books sometimes get hung up in Customs holds for weeks. Now, they can’t even send a book to Colorado without freaking out that I may be a terrorist sending bombs? It’s a six-by-nice-inch softcover book, you idiots, do you really lack the technology to figure that one out? And will it really make a difference if I drop it at the Post Office myself considering that they don’t ask for ID or provide any other security anyway?

WTF?!?! OK, readers, thanks for indulging my little rant. Now back to your regularly scheduled news coverage.

Seven for spring

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
1
Seven for spring

marke@sfbg.com

FASHION/SHOPPING Everything seems so chill in men’s street wear lately, no? The harsh electro neons and jittery MySpace fabrics of the past few years have gone the way of shutter shades and full-print tees. Flashiness — on the dance floor, on the streets, online — is fading into a style of subtle sparks, complex yet unfussy, mixing high-tech winks with a comfy, endlessly expandable base. Menswear is going deep on us, and taking our sensibilities with it: if you’re still using irony to justify your outfit, then you need to back slowly away from your Tumblr and take a look around.

This makes it harder to binge shop for your wardrobe at thrift stores, of course, unless you’ve got a great connection to a super-hip tailor who won’t go overboard. And I fear that by jettisoning the devil-may-care attitude of WTF bricolage ensembles, we’re quaffing any sense of humor altogether. Still, the burst of, dare I say, modesty after a decade of gaudy attention-whoring comes as a relief. It feels like menswear in 2011 just totally deleted the comments section and moved on.

Another worry, though: how much does all this cost? It’s true that the new look and feel hearkens back to the old model of class, taste, and, yes, accounts. Fortunately, you can get by just fine matching neutral-leaning thrift and vintage finds — some holes or split seams, no problem — with newer touches. Yay for casual deconstruction! Lately San Francisco, previously by no means an oasis of menswear shopping, has opened up in the cool men’s streetwear department, adding to its handful of staples (Nomads, Upper Playground, Density, Unionmade, Azalea, Brooklyn Circus, etc.) a batch of new places and sites to search for spring inspiration. Below are some of my faves.

 

SUI GENERIS “ILLE”

This is the coolest place to vintage shop in the city right now. Castro men’s designer consignment boutique Sui Generis isn’t new, but it just moved, doubling its size as well as its offerings, and adding “Ille,” a Latin masculine declension, after its name. (Owners Miguel Lopez and Gabriel Yanez have turned the old location, at 2265 Market St., into “Illa,” a gorgeous upscale women’s consignment shop.) I’m far from a label whore, but I can appreciate when my friends gush over the selection of repriced Prada, etc. on offer here, all of it chosen with an excellent eye. Beyond the brand worship, you’ll find everything you need to construct a look here — just add your own futuristic flourishes — and the prices aren’t too shabby.

2265 Market, SF. (415) 437-2231, www.suigenerisconsignment.com

 

NICE COLLECTIVE MSU

Just down the street from Sui Generis is this rad pop-up shop from the boys at the fantastic local Nice Collective label, showcasing their particular genius for deconstructed clothing that radiates raffish gentility. (I’m living for their anarcho-utopian push-up cargo pants.) The tech details in most of their designs are fascinating, and the interior of this shop, with its disassembled drop ceiling, billowing canvas tunnel entrance, and digital projections, is a work of art in itself. Nice Collective is a real, big time design house, though, so expect related price points and quality.

2111 Market, SF. (415) 200-5322, www.nicecollective.com

 

HANGR 16

Go to this just-opened Mission District store if only to bask in the incredible friendliness, not pushiness, of the people who work there. As well as carrying unique items from local design wunderkinds Turk + Taylor — I’m still drooling over this one heavy felt Army jacket there — Hangr 16 offers an array of super-affordable button-ups, western shirts, plaid flannels, jeans, and nifty tees in its immaculate little white hangar of a space. More shopping options in the Mission? Oh yeah.

3128 16th St., SF. (415) 626-5522. www.faceboook.com/hangr16

 

BUSH + LEAVENWORTH

A smooth take on classic Americana from this online design house, founded by Neth Nom at his apartment guess where. Light plaid button-ups and some mouthwatering tee designs based on chess pieces (queen for me!) are highlights, as is the ultra-sporty nylon Fillmore windbreaker, combining Members Only stylishness with team jacket masculinity.

www.bushandleavenworth.com

 

MISSION WORKSHOP

Bike enthusiasts with chronic Chrome fatigue should fixie-fly to this hidden little warehouse outlet immediately. Beautifully crafted messenger bags and backpacks in unique styles are the draw, but the supplementary Quoc Pham, DZR, and house footwear, plus a good selection of outerwear, transcend utility to style bliss.

40 Rondel Place, SF. (415) 864-7225, www.missionworkshop.com

 

REVOLVER

I am crying, weeping with want, over this kickass pair of Yuketen Maine Guide OX Red shoes that look like Docksides on steroids. They are $440 at Revolver, a cute little joint that just opened in Lower Haight, and, alas, I sold my first-born for a baggie in the 1990s. But I am going to try them on with a pair of $199 Denham Mohawk chinos and a post-prepster $160 ecru Vassan 2-Tone jacket and yacht rock the fuck out for a few minutes.

136 Fillmore, SF. (415) 871-0665, www.revolversf.com

 

ALLSAINTS SPITALFIELDS

I really hate to recommend a chain, even one from Britain that’s just launching on these shores. But hey, I can’t afford anything here anyway (basic shirts start at around $140), so I’m going to tell you to go and check it out, if only because of the stunning interior that mixes steampunk accents with actual Victoriana. The clothes represent the complete yet fascinating gentrification of a certain postapocalyptic Burning Man aesthetic (the one without the sex clowns and fun fur). Everything is perfectly distressed — work boots, for instance, that gleam vermilion in certain slants of light.

140 Geary, SF. (415) 762-0702, www.allsaints.com

The Mutaytor’s latest album burns bright and deep

Sasha Cuttler
-
0

A year ago, I got the opportunity to watch The Mutaytor record its latest album, “Unconditional Love: The Westerfeld Sessions,” in the William Westerfeld House, a mansion on Alamo Square with a rich history. Instruments filled the beautifully restored home, and the music seemed to resonate with the 120-year-old walls – as well as with the book that I was completing at the time: The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture.

As I wrote for the Guardian at the time and in my book, The Mutaytor is Burning Man’s most iconic musical spawn, a band that started on the playa as a pickup group of musicians, dancers, acrobats, and dusty freaks, developing into an enduring of collection musical ambassadors for this burgeoning counterculture. Mutaytor and its music has a special place in the hearts of most burners.

Now that the album has been released and logged several plays through my speakers, I have to say that it’s more than just a sentimental favorite. This is just a great fucking album! Most of the songs draw from the group’s extensive existing playlist, and tunes like “Give a Little Mo’” and “The Family Business” will be as familiar to veteran burners as the well-worn early tracks from Burning Man’s other big iconic act, the Berkeley-based beatfreak Bassnectar.

But Mutaytor is a band of serious-minded musicians and sound engineers, so this album still feels fresh and big. With a full horn section and multiple drummers banging away on sprawling drum kits, the sound just explodes at times, driven steadily along by former Oingo Boingo bassist John Avila. And the album is filled with fun little surprises, like when “Give a Little Mo’” veers off into a rift from Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.”

Although the band is based in Southern California, it has a special connection to San Francisco and the Westerfeld House, a sprawling mansion owned by longtime burner Jim Siegel, where the band’s members – which can number as many as two dozen for its spectacular shows – stay when they’re here performing. It’s like sacred ground to them, which is why they recorded here and miked the whole house up for sound.

“We’re getting the best tones,” singer/guitarist/arranger Buck Down told me at the time. And maybe I’m projecting, but I can almost feel that rich setting as I listen to this album, in which big rocking moments give way to haunting melodies, like the strings in “Tung Jen III” that seem to carry with them ancient memories from this storied mansion.

So, on a personal note, I’m excited to return to the Westerfeld House for a book reading and discussion next Friday the 11th starting at 7 pm, where I half-expect the walls to still carry a faint vibration from this epic recording session. Come on by and tell me if you can hear it too.

Or as The Mutaytor says in “How to Convert Civilians into Rock Stars”: “We are nymphs, we are figments of your imagination, and then we are gone, gone, gone, gone…”

Burn this culture

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Burn this culture

caitlin@sfbg.com

LIT “I didn’t want to write a love letter to Burning Man.” Those words may come as a surprise out of the mouth of Guardian City Editor Steven T. Jones, who has been covering the freaky desert art festival and its year-round scene for nearly seven years in these very pages. They’re also surprising given that news of the book has already spread across the country by the vast Burning Man network: listserves, counterculture word-of-mouth, and through an important nod by the festival itself, which included a mention of Jones’ in-depth exploration of 2004-10 burner culture, The Tribes of Burning Man (Consortium of Collective Consciousness, 312 pages, $17.95) in its Jack Rabbit Speaks newsletter, which lands in 70,000 inboxes across the country.

Although Jones critiques many aspects of playa life, the book seems to be resonating with people immersed in the DIY, creativity a-go-go, Black Rock City milieu. “Man,” a burner friend told me on a recent trip to Washington, D.C. “You just don’t see books about Burning Man around these parts!” Which is kind of the point — Jones wanted to highlight a culture he says is vastly underreported yet culturally significant (and have a good time in the process). The book may be the most researched history of the festival to date, and romps through some of the biggest parties and most innovative art experiments on the playa in first person. “I was lucky to be reporting on this event at this time,” Jones says. “It was really epic stuff.”

Love the burn? Find yourself in the book’s pages — and at Jones’ series of readings all over town, he’ll be holding to celebrate its release. Hate everything it stands for? Read it and you’ll never have to go. I sat down with Jones at the newly remodeled Zeitgeist last week to learn more about the Man.

SFBG Why did you write this book?

Steven T. Jones Burning Man has been largely misunderstood and marginalized. Even those who know something about the event assume that its moment has past, that it’s “gone corporate” or otherwise lost its essential energy and appeal. Those who aren’t familiar think of it as just a festival. But it still absolutely floors newcomers, giving them what many describe as a chance to rediscover some more authentic sense of self in this strange and challenging new world. In recent years, this culture has expanded outward all over the world, a development that has begun to be even more important than the event itself to many people. It’s spawned vast social networks of creative, engaged people pursuing really interesting projects, and I’m honored to be able to tell their stories.

SFBG What initially drew you to write about Burning Man? You’re the Guardian city editor and most of your pieces are about politics.

SJ I think it’s hard to separate political culture from the counterculture. This book is probably more about San Francisco than it is about Black Rock City. Burning Man is the most significant culture to come out of San Francisco in years, especially considering its longevity and reach. I mean, some of our progressive political views have spread, but there are groups of burners in every major American city.

SFBG Who are the burners?

SJ There’s a census taken every year, so we know exact demographics on this one. There’s a wide age range and a wide cultural range in terms of ethnicities and geographic regions, and a range of how people live. There are the super-conservatives …

SFBG Really?

SJ Yeah, there are plenty of libertarians there. That’s how it was founded — the gun nuts and the freaks. Then the hippies discovered it. There’s the old hippie-punk divide at Burning Man that we see play out in San Francisco politics all the time over the last 40 years.

SFBG Throughout much of the book, you’re struggling with Burning Man’s political significance. In 2008 you even took a break in the middle of the festival to attend the Democratic National Convention and Barack Obama’s nomination. What was your final conclusion — is Burning Man important, politically speaking?

SJ It’s a good question. I wanted it to be. Larry Harvey wanted it to be, given what was going on with the rest of the country at the time. Ultimately, it just is what it is. I think it’s at least as relevant as the Tea Party — it’s got a better thought-out ethos and value system, but it doesn’t get as much press. It is a city, and the example the city offers is very relevant to the rest of the country.

SFBG Let’s say I’ve never gone to Burning Man and I’m never going to go. What does this book have for me?

SJ Burners are my main target audience, but it was important to me to make this book interesting and accessible to those who don’t go to Burning Man. I firmly ground this book in an intriguing sociopolitical moment in 2004, when the country really lost its mind. Bush was being reelected president and things were about to turn really ugly with the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina, events that would further divide an already fractured country. I don’t think it’s an accident that the country hit its nadir just as Burning Man hit its zenith. People were desperate for authenticity, creativity, and a life-affirming way to spend their time. The most innovative and impactful cultural developments often happen on the margins, so to ignore Burning Man is to be incurious about what is animating the counterculture in San Francisco and other cities — people who will help lead this country back from this cultural desert we’re in, if that is ever going to happen.

SFBG Are you going to continue to write about burner culture as extensively as you’ve been doing?

SJ No, I think I’ll back off on it. I’ve got a few ideas for the next project — I’m fascinated by bike culture. I think it’d be fascinating to explore the international bike movement in the fashion of this book.

STEVEN T. JONES READS FROM TRIBES OF BURNING MAN

“Burning Man and the Art of Urbanism”

Tues/8 6 p.m., free for SPUR members, $20 for nonmembers

SPUR

654 Mission, SF

(415) 781-8726

www.spur.org

“Tribes of Burning Man Reading and Powwow”

Fri/11 7:30-10 p.m., $5–$20

Westerfield House

1198 Fulton, SF

Facebook: Tribes of Burning Man Reading and Powwow

5 Things: February 28, 2011

Andrew Lam
-
0

Each day, our editors pick five (or so) things that might interest you

>>OSCAR AND ANN L.A. performance artist-sitcom regular Ann Magnuson is one of our favorite people ever (ask her about crashing in our tent at Burning Man). Sure she’s pretty famous, she ruled ’80s downtown New York, and she is, in fact, the Power of Pussy. But she’s funniest when she’s just straight-up laying down some home truths. Here’s her viral Oscar rant and here’s the film she should have won an Oscar for:

>>BUT STILL, MILA’S DRESS WASN’T ENOUGH TO SOOTHE OUR RANDY NEWMAN-INDUCED RAGE Return to a time when Hollywood rewarded more glamor, less non-threatening paunch — the Balboa Theatre is turning 81 this year, which means it was born the same year as Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Hefner, Harry Dean Stanton, and Cloris Leachman (to name just a few — 1926 was a very good year!) Of course, it was a tragic year too: silent-film hunk Rudolph Valentino died at the age of 31. This year’s Balboa birthday bash (March 6, 7 p.m., $10) pays tribute to the original Italian Stallion with a screening of his 1922 high-seas adventure Moran of the Lady Letty, which was filmed right here in San Francisco and Tiburon. Swoon! Frederick Hodges performs an original score to go with the film, plus there’ll be a magic lantern slides, short films, a live vaudeville show, talks by Valentino experts, and birthday cake for all. www.balboamovies.com.

>>GET YOUR CARNAVAL ON Controversial, yet totally back up-able stance: Carnaval blows most other SF parades outta the grandstand. Sequined spandex, dope Latin beats, and way less corporate involvement than say, the SOUTHWEST AIRLINES Chinese New Year Parade, plus it’s in the Mission – how funky can you really get surrounded by the evil towers of the Financial District? Mission Cultural Center’s putting out the call for dancers in its parade contingent this year, so for anyone who is looking for a little workout, and a whole lot more sabor in their lives, sign up for the bi-week rehearsals to strut the streets as part of the center’s Pre-Colombian-style festivating at the May 29th parade. Email carnaval@missionculturalcenter.org or call (415) 821-1155 to make it happen.

>>IT’S EARLY, BITCH Britney’s coming to the Castro for an a.m. appearance on “Good Morning America” at which throngs of sleep-deprived acolytes will vie to supply her with Hot Cookies and Seconals.

>>THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE SMALL HOME Frigid temps making your flat seem like barren, fossil fuel-sucking tundra? Heard. Would that we all had a small home, whose energy-efficient ways are ever-so-in-right-now – and beyond adorable. Look at them! 

Contibutors: Cheryl Eddy, Caitlin Donohue, and Marke B.

 

Hoop dreams

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
2
Hoop dreams

culture@sfbg.com

RENEW Christabel Zamor moves like a snake — eyes fixed, lithe body writhing, hips rippling back and forth — which isn’t really surprising, considering the number of times she’s shed her skin.

Zamor is a hoopdancer — one of those sylph-like sirens who show up at parties and raves and on the playa in order to make the men drool and the women vow to do sit-ups. She credits hooping as the secret to her sensuous shape — but if you’re thinking of getting out your snake charmer’s flute, let’s get one thing straight: in this case, it’s the sexy serpent who’s charming you.

Zamor is magnetic and incredibly talented, but what sets her apart from other Bay Area hoopers is her avid following, cultivated by Hooping! The Book!, an array of instructional DVDs and 72-hour teacher training program that has certified 570 instructors in 16 countries. Zamor is HoopGirl® — a persona that not only has allowed her to whittle her waist and tone her tummy but to explode into a fitness franchise.

An erstwhile doctoral student and one-time “heavy-set, shy academic,” Zamor says she transformed her life — and her body — through hooping’s calorie-burning workouts and confidence-building powers. She now travels the world as a fitness trainer and empowerment coach, teaching people that they can do the same thing.

“I wasn’t really looking for hooping,” she says. At 27, Zamor was a UC Santa Barbara PhD student struggling to find academic support for her interest in ethnomusicology and drumming. Frustrated, she dropped out from her program after receiving a master’s degree, traveled to Senegal to study djembe, returned to the States, enrolled in Pacifica Graduate Institute’s master’s program in mythology and depth psychology, and began working as a personal assistant. Amid the confusion, she says she didn’t have the power to envision a life outside her studies. “I wanted to be a healer but didn’t know it,” she says.

But a simple circle changed all that. At a Gathering of the Tribes conference in Los Angeles, Zamor fortuitously picked up her first hoop — and HoopGirl was set in motion.

Zamor claims she never had a hula hoop as a child, but from the first instant she picked up the plastic ring and it clattered uncooperatively to the ground, she was hooked. Despite the initial “experience of not succeeding,” she was captivated by the hoopers around her — “beautiful nymphs undulating gorgeously” — and she was determined to become one.

“I got a hoop and started practicing in the park, in rhythm with high-energy trance or electronic music,” she says, and crowds “just started gathering.” When a newspaper reporter wrote a story on her weekly spin sessions, “100 people showed up wanting to hoop.”

Hooping has provided Zamor with a means of transformation, for her physical body as well as her spiritual self. She describes hooping as the portal that awakened her to underground subcultures like the circus-arts scene and artistic communities like Burning Man.

Zamor found that she could hoop for six hours at a time and that it catalyzed a level of physical and spiritual presence she describes as a “quickening” of the body. She interprets the orbital motion of the hoop as “intrinsically about coming back to your center,” a practice that stills mental chatter.

Hooping also began to fill in for the cultural activity that Zamor had so desperately wanted to study at UCSB. She had sought to understand how tribal rituals played a role in society, but she realized that dissecting a cultural form appropriated from the third world brought up questions of co-optation that she didn’t want to wrestle with. Hooping provided the same rhythmic, percussive, ritualistic aspects and counted as an indigenous rite in California in the early aughts, when its popularity was exploding. Burning Man was where Zamor tapped into hooping as a “sacred, transcendent experience,” one that she ultimately felt empowered to interpret for a national audience.

Now 10 years later, Zamor has performed at events for Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, and Cirque du Soleil. She has been hired to represent fitness brands and health club chains. She is licensing HoopGirl® Workout teachers across Canada, England, Australia, and the United States, where her hoop regimen has been certified by the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America.

At 38, she is a fitness guru and the leader of a profitable exercise business. In her books and DVDs, she maintains a bubbly exuberance in describing her physical transformation. “My unwanted extra fat just disappeared and was replaced by gorgeous muscle,” she crows, describing her journey. But she leaves out transcendence at Burning Man in favor of the elation of calories burned.

Zamor admits that she has had to be a chameleon to market herself and her hooping. Unlike other elite hoopers who began to develop the art form around the same time or even earlier, Zamor hasn’t been content to limit herself to a part of the San Francisco subculture. She hopes to bring legitimacy to hooping, which sometimes means talking abs and aerobics. “To spread hooping, I have to be able to spread the lingo. I gain respect by speaking a language that people respect.”

But when she is training HoopGirl dancers, she says she still refers to hooping as a spiritual practice. Her mantra — hooping is sexy! — is as much about a sense of self-worth as a satisfying session in the sack. The once “introverted loner” has been able to use hooping to help shed her old self, literally — and she’s eager to show us that results are replicable at home.

“The hoop adheres better to bare skin,” she explains, “so I started wearing less clothing. Showing my arms, showing my legs — it’s like the hoop was asking me to take those things off. I started to feel like I didn’t have to hide who I was.”

Flipping through pages of toned hotties in her book, or watching the bootie-shorted babes in her DVDs, it might be difficult to believe that the sexiness of hooping isn’t about, well, sex. But Zamor says there is something deeply and inherently feminine about the hoop — and it’s not just that the ladies look better shakin’ it.

After two surgeries for endometriosis, Zamor is convinced that the “soothing gyrations” of the hoop against her pelvis have helped heal her. “Hooping provided the insight I needed to slow down and focus on my body,” she says, explaining that it’s also a way to strengthen her core and reproductive organs, bringing fresh blood to the pelvic region and awakening her libido. Now, six years since her last surgery, she emphasizes that her doctor was amazed at how quickly she healed by hooping through the ordeal.

Next up, Zamor will be working on bringing that whole-body healing to women who may not be willing to step inside the hoop. She has expanded her business to include empowerment classes that honor the “divine, delicious feminine” and that will help women become a more supple, radiant, and luminous version of themselves, she says.

These classes in “hooping outside the hoop” are geared toward helping others uncover the empowerment and sense of self-worth that Zamor has found through HoopGirl. Of course, unless Zamor is planning on turning out hundreds of successful fitness revolutionaries with profitable book deals of their own, it’s hard to say whether her personal transformation will be replicable. But with one irresistible smile from Zamor, it’s easy to see that the hoop has worked for her — and difficult to resist the urge to run out and buy one for oneself.

Hot sexy events: February 16-22

Andrew Lam
-
0
Hot sexy events: February 16-22

‘Tis the weekly sex events of playa-sized proportions! In addition to our city editor Steve Jones’ reading at Kinky Salon this week, this week you can also catch a reception for a new art book on goofily half-attired or gleefully naked Burners published for the world to see, courtesy of playa photographer Julian Cash.

The People of Burning Man is the product of Cash’s insistence on bringing an immaculate white portable studio to the playa year after year,  setting up actual photo shoots in a festival world where most documentation relies on the most candid of cameras. The result is that BRC’s wacky personas and costumes are explicated and orchestrated better than they’d ever be if you just saw them strutting past you through Center Camp. Not surprisingly, a lot of the photos have to do with sex. But Cash’s impish camera-side manner has a way of making even the most pierced, punked perv look playful (I should know, he took myphotos last fall) – and his signature white backdrop strips his subjects’ context away so that you can really focus on what that pair of furry pink chaps, nipple paint, or lifted tutu wants to express.

 

The People of Burning Man opening art reception

With the publication of his playa photo book finally funded thanks to the omnipotent powers of Kickstarter, feel free to kick back and revel in the cheekiness of Julian Cash’s art book images – and perhaps make plans for a photo shoot of your own with the man? 

Thurs/17 6-8 p.m., free

Good Vibrations 

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com


Sizzle

One of the hottest spoken word open mics around, tonight marks the start of February’s impressive collaborations between Femina Potens – which is currently in-between brick-and-mortar gallery locations – and Mission Control. Featuring the likes of adult filmmaker-writer-educator Tristan Taormino, Valencia scribe Michelle Tea, and dominatrix Keva i Lee, you’re bound (and gagged) to catch something you like onstage. 

Fri/18 8-11 p.m., $10

Mission Control

www.missioncontrolsf.org


“Love you – mean it! Love in the context of S&M”

Complete with in-person scene demonstrations, this workshop will look at ways that femme tops can show love even while they inflict anxiety, struggle, and pain in their subs. Come with questions about how to apply the lessons to your own sex life and take note – no male-identifying lovahs at this one, just like at all other Exiles S&M education events.

Fri/18 7:30-10:30 p.m., $4-10

Women’s Building

3543 18th St., SF

(415) 431-1180

www.theexiles.org


Kinky Salon Sweetheart’s Ball

Kinky Salon is counting on the fact that you’re totally over Valentine’s Day bullshit and yet totally ready to don your Candyland finest and ooze that sugary-sweet all over your swinger pals. For two nights in a row! Well, you don’t have to go to the costume play party for both nights, but if you’re going to take in all the performances – which include a duet with Polly Superstar and Bow Wow Wow’s Leigh Gorman and a reading by our own city editor of his new dissection of Burning Man culture – and still have time to get your gumdrop off, you may need to. 

Fri/18-Sat/19 10 p.m.-late, $30-35 members only

Mission Control 

www.missioncontrolsf.org


School of Shimmy Burlesque 101

Oh man… how do those burlesque ladies do it? Dottie Lux can tell you, if you like. Lux’ll be performing onstage at Burlesque Moulin at the Down Low on Sat/19, and she’s just dropping back in Sunday afternoon to impart the basics of booty-shake to burlesque wannabees. Interested? Jump up there girl, show us your tap pants. 

Sun/20 1-3 p.m., $30 discounted tickets available night of Sat/19 show

The Shattuck Down Low

2284 Shattuck, Berk.

(201) 615-9245

www.shattuckdownlow.com


One year in: BDSM newbie panel

There’s plenty of places in town where you can go to hear the escapades of BDSM stalwarts, the individuals who’ve done it all. But what’s it like to be discovering it all for the first time(s)? This panel discussion will feature people who’ve dove into the scene in the last 365 days, moderated by Gabby, who says she entered the scene in 2007 and promptly started disobeying all the advice of those in the know. 

Tues/22 8-10 p.m., $20

SF Citadel 

277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org

 

Our Weekly Picks: February 16-22

Andrew Lam
-
0

WEDNESDAY 16

MUSIC

Dum Dum Girls

Dee Dee, bandleader of Dum Dum Girls, a 1960s pop-meets-early punk, all-girl four piece, is no dummy. Named not for the lollipops, but after the Vaselines’ album Dum-Dum and the Iggy Pop song “Dum Dum Boys,” DDG was initially a solo project on Dee Dee’s DIY record label, Zoo Music. To take her music beyond her bedroom, she called on the help of her friends: Jules (guitar and vocals), Bambi (bass), and Sandy (drums and vocals). DDR’s most recent album, Sub Pop release I Will Be, features Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Crocodiles’ Brandon Welchez, and Los Angeles musician Andrew Miller. (Jen Verzosa)

With Minks and Dirty Beaches

9 p.m., $12

Bottom Of The Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

THURSDAY 17

EVENT

The Tribes of Burning Man

Either you are or you aren’t: I’m an aren’t. As in, not a Burning Man person. But that won’t stop me from trumpeting the release of The Tribes of Burning Man, the end result of six years of work by Steven T. Jones, known around the Guardian as Steve the City Editor and on Burning Man’s playa as “Scribe.” Chances are you’ve seen Jones’ Burning Man coverage in the Guardian’s pages over the years; his new book examines the history and philosophy of the annual event, as well as the ways that Burning Man has become a year-round lifestyle for some and a (counter-) cultural touchstone for hundreds of thousands of desert-goers. The Tribes launch party features readings by Jones and appearances by Burning Man leader Larry Harvey, circus performers Fou Fou Ha, beat boxer Kid Beyond, and other colorful characters from the book. (Cheryl Eddy)

7 p.m., $5 ($20 with book)

Project One

251 Rhode Island, SF

www.p1sf.com

 

MUSIC

3 Inches of Blood

Though it has endured many lineup changes, 3 Inches of Blood is always instantly recognizable, thanks to the falsetto assault of vocalist Cam Pipes (his real name). Drawing on power metal and thrash but hewing closely to the classic sounds of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Pipes and his Vancouver-based band have plied their rock the world over. Fire Up the Blades (2007) experimented with polished, immaculate production, with Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison producing, but 2009 release Here Waits Thy Doom stripped away the gloss, returning the band to its raw, urgent roots. Now that it’s coming to town, you won’t have to wait for your doom any longer. (Ben Richardson)

With Eluveitie, Holy Grail, System Divide

7:30 p.m., $20

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

 

FILM

“Around the World in 33 Films: The Jeonju Digital Project”

The still-young Jeonju International Film Festival is exceptional for privileging film culture over film markets. To take one significant example of this emphasis, for each edition the festival commissions three half-hour digital films by major auteurs. It’s almost impossible to imagine an American festival apportioning funds in this internationalist, art-first manner. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts screens all 33 Jeonju commissions from 2000-10 over the next two weeks. It’s an ambitious — and, one imagines, costly — program, so make it count. This first show features an especially strong class of 2010 (James Benning, Denis Côté, and Matías Piñeiro), with works by the new century’s preeminent film artists (Pedro Costa, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jia Zhangke, etc.) waiting in the wings. (Max Goldberg)

Feb 17–27 (2010 program: tonight, 7:30 p.m.), $8

YBCA Screening Room

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2700

www.ybca.org

 

FRIDAY 18

MUSIC

Chromeo

At first listen, Chromeo’s music would seem to run the risk of being a little tough to take seriously — if only it wasn’t so damn well-executed. Instead, the Montreal-based electro-funk duo creates perfectly retro-minded jams that skimp refuse to scrimp on creative songcraft or purely visceral dance floor diversion. The fantastic talk box solos don’t hurt either. Taking its cues from classic era funk, Hall and Oates-style blue-eyed soul, and modern synthpop, Chromeo’s 2010 album Business Casual has led to a slew of strong reviews, festival appearances, and a top 10 slot on Billboard’s dance/electronic chart. (Landon Moblad)

With MNDR and the Suzan

8 p.m., $25

Fox Theater

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

(510) 548-3010

www.thefoxoakland.com

 

MUSIC

Bart B More

How old is Bart B More? In videos from his recent Asian tour, he’s got the pallid complexion that my friends did in high school. Maybe a result of the DJ lifestyle, spending too much time in clubs around 2 a.m. (or being Danish). The rest of Bart B’s existence, from what I can tell, consists of lifting weights and looking at Lamborghinis. Ah, to be an international beat maker, an up-and-comer who’s reputedly worth checking out. Anyway, Blasthaus resident Nisus has proven himself a reliable dance floor driver, delivering a binaural set at the Treasure Island Music Festival and excellently setting up the Twelves earlier this month. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Nisus and Tron Jeremy

9 p.m., $12.50

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

MUSIC

Mark Growden

Back from another long stretch of touring and recording, wandering minstrel Mark Growden lands at the Brava Theatre with a brand new album Lose Me in the Sand and a posse of old-school Tucson troubadours as the backing band. Less sweepingly-thematic than 2010’s Saint Judas, the new album combines oddments of philosophy, romance, humor, and reminiscence, covering familiar tunes in startlingly unfamiliar ways, plus a handful of originals including a breakneck-paced courting song “Settle in a Little While” and a sepia-toned hometown lament “Killing Time.” Growden’s long-time collaborator and Porto Franco labelmate Seth Ford Young opens and also releases his eponymous debut album. (Nicole Gluckstern)

With Seth Ford Young

Fri/18–Sat/19, 8 p.m., $20–$50

Brava Theatre

2781 24th St., SF

(415) 641-7657

www.brava.org

 

PERFORMANCE

Move Thru Me

“I’m with the band” may sound smoother than “I’m with the dance company,” although either could be stated by the performers of Move Thru Me, a collaboration of Christine Cali’s Cali & Co Dance and Matthew Langlois’ the Welcome Matt band. A hybrid of rock ‘n’ roll and modern dance, the performance responds to the pursuit of a creative life and ongoing artistic practice. Prior to joining forces, Cali and Langlois each worked as independent artists for more than 15 years. The work includes a soundtrack of original music as well as online dance videos. As with any good concert tour — T-shirts! (Julie Potter)

Fri/18–Sat/19, 8 p.m. (also Sun/20, 5 p.m.), $10–$20

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th St., SF

(415) 826-4441

www.dancemission.com

 

SATURDAY 19

EVENT

“From Produce to Production: New Traditions in Bay Area Food Culture”

Bay Area Now (BAN6), a triennial celebrating local artists from diverse disciplines, begins with a series of Bay Area-centric conversations about food, environmentalism, futurism, community activism, radical identities, and technology. The first roundtable discussion addresses new practices for growing, preparing and shopping for food, during which YBCA Executive Director Ken Foster will speak with food luminaries Bryant Terry, eco-chef and activist from Oakland and author of Vegan Soul Kitchen; Novella Carpenter, journalist, farmer and author of Farm City; and Leif Hedendal, a self-educated chef at San Francisco’s Greens and Oakland’s Citron restaurants, whose Bay Area culinary events combine art and food. (Potter)

1 p.m., free

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 987-2787

www.ybca.org

 

EVENT

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles

Planning on consuming a little New Year’s nosh during this weekend’s bunny-fueled festivities? Then you might be interested to know that the Japanese — not Chinese — invented the fortune cookie; Chinese takeout cartons can be found everywhere but China; and chop suey may or may not be an elaborate American hoax. I see all you smartphone nerds plinking “chop suey” into snopes.com right now, but save yourselves the trouble: New York Times reporter and author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles Jennifer 8. Lee is here to unravel the history of Chinese cookery — and just in time for the Chinese New Year. The book is also seasoned with a healthy smattering of SF history to spice things up. (Emily Appelbaum)

2:30–4 p.m., free

San Francisco Public Library

Chinatown Branch

1135 Powell, SF

(415) 557-4400

www.sfpl.org

 

SUNDAY 20

EVENT

“San Francisco Mixtape Society presents Guilty Pleasures”

Listening to Ke$ha on repeat? Excited about Britney Spears’ upcoming release, Femme Fatale? Love to share music? Then the San Francisco Mixtape Society has you covered. It presents “Guilty Pleasures,” a night of music mixtape exchanges. Assemble a mixtape according to the theme in any format — cassette, CD, or USB — and leave with a fellow attendee’s mixtape; they’ll be exchanged throughout the evening via a raffle. Those who come armed with tunes will receive a free drink — and all the joy guilty pleasures can provide. (Verzosa)

4–6 p.m., free

Make-Out Room

3225 22nd St., SF

(415) 647-2888

www.sfmixtapesociety.com

 

MONDAY 21

EVENT

“The Cleveland Confidential Book Tour”

As the guitarist for Rocket from the Tombs and the Dead Boys, Cheetah Chrome helped write the sonic blueprint for punk rock — and now he’s written an autobiography, Cheetah Chrome: A Dead Boy’s Tale From The Front Lines of Punk Rock, which chronicles his explosive life and his role in one of the most infamous movements in modern pop culture. Joining him for “The Cleveland Confidential Book Tour” are Mike Hudson from the Pagans and Bob Pfeifer from Human Switchboard; don’t miss your chance to hear the story straight from the mouths of a triumvirate of punks’ founding fathers. (Sean McCourt)

Tonight, 6 p.m., $10

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com.

Tues/22, 7 p.m., free

Moe’s Books

2476 Telegraph, Berk.

(510) 849-2087

www.moesbooks.com

Feb. 23, 7 p.m., free

Gallery Fifty24

218 Fillmore, SF

www.noisepop.com

 

TUESDAY 22

MUSIC

Odd Future

The Internet has birthed yet another rap group with disturbing lyrics (see also: Die Antwoord), but this time there’s no doubt regarding the collective’s genuine intentions. Members of Los Angeles hip-hop skate crew Odd Future Wolfgang Kill Them All (OFWKTA) range in age from 16 to 23 and wax philosophical about typical teenage concerns, from school and love to murder and bondage. Sometimes the music comes off like a hip-hop parallel to horror metal, but ultimately Odd Future is less about fetishizing violence than it is about offering an unfettered forum for the group’s personalities. Though their ages imply novelty, listening to the sharp, dense flow of Earl Sweatshirt or the lo-fi contorted funk of Tyler the Creator confirms there can be no doubt that these kids are headed for big, big things. (Peter Galvin)

9 p.m., $16

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

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

Fried

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Fried

I don’t have a lot of pet peeves — that would break my lease. Other than, say, invading a country for no reason, making fun of people with mental illnesses and addictions, refusing to pay taxes because you think people of color are moochers, or ordering Uggs online, still, not much reliably gets my goat, ties it down with friendship bracelets and Danish dreadlocks, and forces it to listen to Ke$ha remixed by Tiësto while wearing Juicy Couture or Pink by Victoria’s Secret.  

Baaa.

I do however have an eensy beensy problem with fried food in bars. It may be because I recently quit smoking — farewell, dear Marlboro Man, please moisturize — but lately the combined and pungent waft of cheese-smothered freedom fries, bleachy bar-cleaning solution, and, heaven forfend, deep fried pickles (they have these at Truck in SoMa, they’re frickin’ delicious) makes me want to hurl rainbow Santorum. Could it be that I’m finally pregnant? We’ve tried so hard!

Alas, clouds of steamy trans fat, the unerotic kind, are what one must brave to enjoy Buck Tavern on Market Street, notorious for its new owner, former supervisor and mercurial rabble-rouser Chris Daly. It offers a full menu of yummily evil things whose scent can overpower the atmosphere. But other than that, and perhaps a slight overbrightness of lighting, I have no beef with the place. I’d been there before, when it was a sparsely occupied pool haunt (population: one large drag queen with a pool cue and a frightened-looking bartender) which served only beer and soju cocktails. Now, crowded with cute, diverse folks deep in interesting conversations, full call liquor bottles lining the wall, and the sound of cheerleaders screeching on the flatscreens, it feels downright cozy.

Others may fear clouds of a different sort — and yes this is a progressive wonk’s paradise. Daly can be found behind the bar many nights, and you’ll usually see some political player like John Avalos or Ross Mirkarimi or David Campos or “who the hell knows cuz they’re all slightly brown dudes with the same goatee-hair-tiny glasses thing going on” downing a well-priced pint. There’s even a spread-eagle copy of the Guardian to read over the urinal. (Aim high, haters.) But don’t worry, there’s no ideological purity check at the door, just a friendly sense of come-what-may. In fact, I think we may be witnessing the sudden materialization of some boisterous and idyllic parallel universe City Hall. With cheeseburgers, even!

BUCK TAVERN 1655 Market, SF. (415) 874-9183

 

PUPPY PILE

With newish monthly parties like Beatpig, Chickenbear, and OH! the Powerhouse is rapidly erasing its rep among queer youth as a bland haven for desperate cruisers into carnival techno and so-so blowjobs. This special benefit for Pets Are Wonderful Support brings together two of those parties, Chickenbear and OH! for a night of flying feathers (i.e., a bachelor auction) and rock ‘n’ roll hijinx.

Sat/5, 10 p.m., $5. Powerhouse, 1347 Folsom, SF. www.powerhouse-sf.com

 

PINK MAMMOTH SEVEN-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

I smell Burning Man! And it smells expensive. Luckily, I can enjoy some of the nuttier crews right now, for less than the price of one of the actual mammoths that scientists are hoping to clone this summer. (Imagine riding an actual mammoth onto the Playa. Imagine it with your mind!) So much glitch-funk, chunky techno, zen dubstep fun galore at the fuzzy pink tribe’s seventh hootenanny. Oh goddess, they have their own iPhone app and a hot dog bar. Nothing can stop them now.

Sat/5, 9 p.m.-late, $10–$15. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.pinkmammoth.org

 

EGYPTIAN LOVER

I don’t know if this is timely or not? Current events electro, people. The pioneer of electronic funk puts on one hell of a show, and has been jamming the box and rocking Planet Rock for like three decades now. He’ll be joined by Jaime Jupiter for a journey through the Electric Kingdom.

Sat/5, 10 p.m.-late, $20. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

 

MISS HONEY

Fashion-addict club kids, runway voguing, hip-hop DJs in the stripper pole room, and NYC’s Miss Honey Dijon on the main turntables. Work it out.

Sat/5, 10 p.m., $10. Supperclub, 647 Harrison, SF. www.supperclub.com

Huge demand as Burning Man tickets go on sale

Sasha Cuttler
-
3
Huge demand as Burning Man tickets go on sale

Burning Man 2011 got off to a big start yesterday as tickets went on sale, demonstrating that the 25-year-old event is more popular than ever. The demand for tickets at 10 a.m. was so strong that it crashed the servers for almost two hours, overcoming efforts to beef up a ticketing system that has functioned pretty well the last two years after being a frustrating hassle in previous years.

“People were happy with [the event] last year or they wouldn’t have pounded the servers trying to get a ticket,” Marian Goodell, the event’s communications director, told us. “The ticketing system had been tested pretty extensively, but the sudden demand for service was high that the ticket vendor had ever heard of before.”

More than 20,000 people snapped up tickets in the first 24 hours, outpacing last year and selling out the 9,000 tickets each at the first two tiers of $210 and $240. Goodell said that as many as 40,000 users appeared to be trying to log on yesterday, with many apparently not willing to endure a wait time of about six hours in some cases. Once the current tier of $280 tickets is gone, the price will be $320 until the event.

Last year, the population of Black Rock City – the temporary city that Burning Man attendees build in rural Nevada every August – peaked at more than 51,000 people on Friday night. Goodell wouldn’t make a prediction about this year’s population, noting that spring ticket sales are hard to predict, but she noted that many of the event’s marquee artists, such as Peter Hudson and Sean Orlando, are planning ambitious projects for this year that are already generating excitement.

“We’re very excited about this year,” she said.

For more on Burning Man and its myriad subcultures, you can find my past Guardian articles on the culture here or look for my upcoming book, The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture, being released next month by CCC Publishing.

March Fourth Marching Band reveals its gypsy secrets

Andrew Lam
-
1

One of these days, I’ll hop a bus outta this town. Pullin’ out of here on the wind, if you want to quote the Boss (sometimes I do). One of the groups I’ve been keeping my eye on as a possible accomplice is March Fourth Marching Band. You can find the million-piece ensemble’s rig parked at nearly every festival, ever – always with a few stilters or trombone players spilling out the door, sprawled on a tarp nearby, or if you’re lucky, tapping out a cheerful marching band symphony by a campfire at around five in the morning (hello, High Sierra!) 

And onstage! They’re like a big, loud circus onstage – until all of a sudden they’re off the stage and you’re engulfed in 360 degrees of marching band madness, now having a dance party with its frenzied audience. In anticipation of the band’s upcoming pre-NYE show at The Independent (Thurs/30), March Fourth’s bandleader John Averill sat down at his email portal to tell us all his secrets about where he found the mail order balls needed to make touring with so many moving parts possible.

 

San Francisco Bay Guardian: When March Fourth got together, was touring part of the original concept? How’d you get the balls to take such a massive group on the road?

John Averill: Well, the band was put together for a Fat Tuesday party, so at that time the main concern was learning seven songs to play. Touring was never part of the original concept.  After our first road trip, though, it was pretty evident to me that one, traveling as a group was fun, and two, our project had potential to reach audiences outside of our hometown. We purchased the actual balls to take this massive group on the road by fund-raising and applying to www.theballsyouneed.com. I think we spent like $172 or something. Most balls are less expensive, but M4 is a large group and therefore required extra large balls. But, to anyone out there looking for balls: it’s definitely worth it to spend the money for big balls, if you really need them. I think this year we’re going to purchase an extra set of back-up balls just in case.

 

SFBG: How many musicians do you typically have touring? What’s the toughest part of rolling so deep on tour?

JA: About 13 musicians, five dancers, and two bus drivers is what we’ve been touring with lately. The toughest part is making payroll, which is why we’ve been traveling with a “smaller” group (we used to travel with upwards of 30 people). When we go on tours that are longer than three weeks, there are also issues with accruing very little sleep and not having much personal space. We’re lucky that we get along so well or this thing would be a disaster after a couple of weeks. 

The whole gang. Photo by Andy Batt

SFBG: I’m really into the bus — I’ve seen your rig all over the place, camped out at festivals, etc. What do you keep on there? Does everyone sleep on it? Where’d you get the bus and what’s it’s make and model?

JA: Our bus is a 40-foot MCI coach. It was built in 1984 in Roswell, New Mexico, presumably by aliens. We bought it on eBay 3 years ago and converted it to suit our needs. It can sleep 10 people comfortably, or 20 semi-comfortably. It has become our home on wheels and is probably the single wisest investment we have ever made. It’s where we cook, get dressed, etc. Most promoters can’t pay for lodging for 20 people when we’re on tour so we sleep in, on top of, and around the bus. We keep our camping gear on top and set up tents when we can, and when it’s not miserable outside. Our bus doesn’t doesn’t have an official name, although it is called “Razzle Dazzle” by many. I personally refer to it as “The Shire,” although the idea to have round doors installed was not practical.

 

SFBG: Where do the costumes come from?

JA: The costumes are designed by the people who wear them, for the most part. Most of us are pretty good at finding cool vintage stuff and thrift-store items and then augmenting them to fit us. All of our dancers have mad costume skills — some are bona-fide full-time designers and they help out the musicians who don’t know how to sew.  

 

SFBG: What genre does March Fourth classify as? Are there groups out there that you see as your peers?

JA: I don’t know what our genre is. Is there a genre for rockin’ crazy fun global groove tribal symphony with stilts?  Actually, one of my favorite things about this project is that we don’t have a genre, and we’re not easy to pigeonhole. Yet, at the same time we’ve developed a “sound.”  There are some groups, like Gogol Bordello, Balkan Beat Box, Ozomatli, Yard Dogs Road Show, and Mucca Pazza who I see as energetic peers and/or kindred spirits, even though we don’t sound like any of them.

 

SFBG: Who are the group’s role models?

JA: You’d probably have to poll everyone in the band to get an accurate answer. Part of the original inspiration for putting the group together was after seeing Extra Action Marching Band and The Infernal Noise Brigade at Burning Man in 2002. Myself and a few others, were thinking “hey let’s try doing something like this in Portland,” but we never sought to emulate those groups in terms of the style of music we performed or how we presented ourselves. Now there’s an alternative marching band in just about every major city in the US and there are a couple of festivals like HONK! in Boston and HONK! Fest West in Seattle that have become a sort of mecca for large brass and drum-heavy bands to converge and play together. On a personal level, I’ve been inspired by the model created by the Grateful Dead, big bands of the 1930s, large contemporary ensembles such as Polyphonic Spree, and some of the stuff coming out of Brooklyn, Dap Tone Records in particular. I’m inspired by anyone who can actually make ends meet doing this.

 

March Fourth Marching Band

Thurs/30 9 p.m. $15-17

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

1...8910...18Page 9 of 18

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org