Event

San Francisco honors the memory of Warren Hellman with a free daytime concert

Tony Robles
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San Francisco will honor the memory of philanthropist Warren Hellman this weekend with a fittingly free, live bluegrass showcase. The event includes performances by: Poor Man’s Whiskey, John Doe, Kevin Welch, Kieran Kane & Fats Kaplin, Dry Branch Fire Squad, Steve Earle, Buddy Miller, The Wronglers (Hellman’s old band) with Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Gillian Welch, Boz Scaggs, Old Crow Medicine Show, Robert Earl Keen, Emmylou Harris with special guest The Go to Hell Man Clan.    

The Warren Hellman Public Celebration takes place Sun/19 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. down by Ocean Beach,  in the Great Highway (Hwy 1) parking lot between JFK Drive and  Lincoln Avenue. The event also will be streaming live at www.strictlybluegrass.com. 

As Guardian city editor Steven T. Jones expressed the week following Hellman’s death late last year, “Warren Hellman left a hole in the heart of San Francisco when he died.” As most San Franciscans know by now, Hellman, a venture capitalist, was a music lover at heart – he bankrolled the city’s prized fall festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YDTx_yXfeI

When culture writer Caitlin Donohue visited Hellman in his office two years before his passing she noted, , “I realize that central to [Hellman] is bluegrass music. His corner office is comfortably packed with stacks of banjos and guitars, a signed CD from Emmylou Harris that wishes him a happy birthday, a metal sculpture that wears aviator sunglasses and a white cowboy hat, thank you plaques from the Berkeley music venue Freight and Salvage, where Hellman is a keystone donor and acted as chairman for the club’s fundraising campaign in years past. It’s impossible to avoid the music in the room, indeed the music is the room.”

Warren Hellman Public Celebration
Sun/19, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., free
Great Highway (Hwy 1) parking lot
Between JFK Drive and  Lincoln Avenue, SF
www.strictlybluegrass.com

Burning Man winners: theme camps, and maybe ticket scalpers

Sasha Cuttler
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Burning Man winners: theme camps, and maybe ticket scalpers

Burning Man organizers faced at least two serious problems created by its flawed new ticketing system, and they chose to deal with just one of them yesterday in announcing that the open sale of the final 10,000 tickets would be canceled and those tickets would instead be sold through the theme camps, art collectives, and volunteer groups that make Black Rock City what it is.

But Black Rock City LLC has decided not to address – at least not yet – its other major problem, which was scalpers and ticket agencies gaming the new ticket lottery to snap up tickets and sell them for huge profits. I and many others have long suggested the LLC register tickets to individual buyers and regulate their exchange to prevent gouging, and after announcing the new system last night, the company got such fierce criticism from online commenters arguing that point that it felt compelled to amend the post a few hours later to address the issue.

“If we don’t fill the holes in the social fabric, who cares about the scalpers, because then we’ve got nothing,” Marian Goodell, the LLC board member who authored last night’s announcement, told me this morning, explaining the emphasis on theme camps.

Without ensuring the city’s art, entertainment, and infrastructure gets build, Burning Man could suffer a fatal blow to its reputation, she said, making the theme camp decision a tough but necessary one. But creating what she called “identity-based tickets” is a far more complicated issue, and she just doesn’t think the scalper problem is as big as many burners believe.

But she doesn’t know for sure. “Nobody knows, it’s all speculation,” Goodell said, and that’s part of the problem. All they really know is demand for tickets this year far exceeded anyone’s expectations – Goodell will only confirm that there were 80,000-120,000 requests for the 40,000 ticket allocated on Feb. 1 – and that tickets often sold for double face value last year after the event sold out a month early for the first time in its 25-year history.

“Is it 100 people or 1,000 people that are going to take advantage of the community, and can we just discourage that?” Goodell said of the number of multiple-ticket-buying profiteers, reiterating her hopes that burners will starve out the scalpers by refusing to pay more than face value for tickets, which is part of the culture’s ethos.

And if it’s just 100, or even 1,000, she said it might not be worth it for the LLC to require the 40,000 people whose tickets will be mailed in June to register by name and to try to bar entry to those whose tickets don’t match their names, particularly given the chance for human error and the remoteness of this temporary city. “How do you punish them? What do you do?” she said, noting that the LLC has delayed the decision on registration while it gathers more information.

But what if the profiteers have managed to wrangle 10,000 tickets? Some bloggers out there have demonstrated how easy it is to generate multiple credit card numbers and argued that scalpers must have done so, despite the LLC claims to have ferreted out the obvious scalper scams before tickets were awarded. “There’s no way it’s 10,000,” Goodell said confidently, although she was also confident that this system would work well, and then that there would be enough extra tickets circulating in the community to satisfy most of the demand, which so far doesn’t seem to be true, with most theme caps reporting that less than a one-third of their members have scored tickets, far less in some cases.

Goodell and the LLC are counting on the STEP ticket exchange system whose registration launches on Feb. 29, but the details of that also generated controversy last night and forced Goodell to say it may still tweak the system. It allows people to sell back their unwanted tickets, with the LLC covering the normal $12 restocking fee. They will then be resold to people who register on a first come, first served basis, but they’ve decided to limit purchases to one per person and only to people who registered and were denied tickets on Feb. 1. Couples were irked that it punishes people who tried to buy two tickets at the main sale using only a single entry, so Goodell said they’ll take another look.

“We are trying to make the STEP system be fluid, so if there’s only a limited number of tickets available then more people can get them,” Goodell said. “We want STEP to work.”

But many burners just don’t think it will. Burning Man tickets have suddenly become a hotter commodity than ever, and even community-minded burners who aren’t seeking to make a profit will probably prefer to sell any extra tickets to someone directly, or to hang onto them for awhile, rather than give them up now to some random people who will then be forced to wait at the gate in the long will-call line, which is a new anti-scalping precaution that Goodell announced.

And then there’s the major thrust of yesterday’s announcement: distributing tickets through theme camps. I and most of the online commenters generally support that decision – at least as the best of a bad set of options – even though it’s certainly a controversial one that values one type of citizen over another and seems to fly in the face of the event’s principle of “radical inclusion.”

Yet it seems to be one that creates some difficult decisions ahead for the LLC. The criteria they laid out say the decisions will be made based on a camp’s history (both its longevity and record of leaving no traces of litter, which the LLC monitors in a very detailed way), what it offers to the city each year, and its adherence to the event’s 10 Principles.

Goodell confirmed my observation of how subjective that judgment will be – something that has spurred criticism that camps cozy with the LLC will get favorable treatment – but she said the large team of volunteers that work with theme camps and volunteer crews each year have already made many of those judgments and determined who will get tickets.

“We already did the math,” she told me. “Just because you’re a theme camp on the map doesn’t entitle you to x-number of tickets.”

While there may be about 700 registered theme camps in recent years, Goodell said the LLC is focused on getting tickets to camps that are truly interactive or offer entertainment, transportation, art, or volunteers to key functions such as the Lamplighters or Gate crew. “And we know who they are,” she said.

For everyone else, there are still a couple more chances to get tickets, beyond just the open market. There will be 4,000 low-income tickets (just $160) offered through a process that will likely be more competitive than ever, with registration beginning Feb. 29. And then there are the major art projects that receive grant funding and free tickets for crew members from the LLC, with the announcements of winners expected next month.

So now, burners and outside observers will just have to wait and see – first how the LLC’s solutions work, then this summer to see how the scalpers’ really did – as Burning Man muddles through what is proving to be a pivotal year.

Live Shots: Surreal Valentine’s re-wedding at Eternity Ball

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Photos by Bowerbird Photography

For Valentine’s Day, Sam Love and I celebrated by going to one gigantic wedding reception. Oh wait, there was a wedding ceremony too. Actually a re-commitment ceremony, where a popular SF wedding officiant, Cynthia Gregory, in her formal black robe, honored a husband and wife’s 20 years of marriage together and blessed them and their continued union. The bride still fit in her wonderfully fluffy satin wedding dress a-la 1992, cinched tight in the back with a gigantic bow.

Weddings are expensive. Tickets to the Eternity Ball, were steep, at $150 a pop, adding to the feeling of a genuine wedding experience. But also like a wedding, any second doubts or financial jitters could be easily soothed with an open bar, and then liberated on the dance floor with a good shake, to all the best 1980s cover songs by some fine Bay Area wedding crooners.

I have to say, I was a bit nervous that the event would be a snooty, swanky affair, but despite the fact that the invitation suggested tuxedos, ball gowns, and wedding dresses as appropriate attire, it was really just another excuse for San Franciscans to do what they do best: dress up and go wild.

One bride sported a pink wig, and her groom wore a black top hat over his flowing dreadlocks. A posse of about six ladies dominated the color palette in their fire engine red, polka dot country girl dresses. Way back in 1985, one of the women bought the dresses at Gunny Sacks for two dollars each. She wrapped them in boxes and told her girlfriends to come over for a surprise, and to bring their pearls. They opened their “gifts,” and after some adjustments, went out on the town, looking perfectly matchy-matchy.

The dresses still fit and come out once or twice a year. This time, the ball gave them a chance to be instant bride’s maids. Besides dancing, costumes, music and drinks, there were space-age edibles to nibble, like mac-and-cheese served in a flying saucer and truffles floating on liquid nitrogen. The whole evening was rather surreal and amazing, much like a wedding party dancing in a house of mirrors, and fueled with a bottomless supply of booze.

But there was one thing missing … where was my slice of wedding cake?

Conversation on Golden Gate Park concerts continues

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“I call for this hearing each year,” said District 1 Supervisor Eric Mar. The focus of the hearing was large events in Golden Gate Park, and each year, hundreds of San Franciscans have something to say about it.

At the Land Use Committee meeting Feb. 13, the room was packed with concert industry representatives, local artists, police officers, a couple dozen members of the Carpenters In Action from the United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 22, and neighbors. Lots and lots of neighbors.

Many of the Richmond and Sunset residents who spoke are furious with the many large concerts that take place in Golden Gate Park throughout the year, including Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Alice’s Summerthing, Outside Lands, and Power to the Peaceful.

They spoke of unbearable noise, impossible parking, and crime spilling over from the event crowds. One man said that during Outside Lands, his house shakes so much that he feels “trapped inside an acoustic guitar for three days straight.”

The Recreation and Parks Department has implemented several measures addressing these ongoing concerns since the first annual hearing on this topic in 2009. Dana Ketchum and Nick Kinsey represented the department at the hearing, speaking in detail of tightened permitting measures, increased outreach to the community about upcoming events, and a hotline set up so neighbors can call in noise complaints more efficiently during large concerts and performances.

Ketchum said that noise complaints have resulted more than once in Rec and Parks representatives threatening to pull the plug on amplified sound in the park if partiers don’t turn it down. One neighbor called the hotline, “more useless than yesterday’s spit.”

Proponents of the events, too, were passionate.

Local hip hop artist Tom Shimura, aka Lyrics Born spoke on the importance of the events to the San Francisco music scene. Shimura praised how the Outside Lands lineup is 20 percent local artists.

“These festivals launch careers and create Bay Area success stories,” said Shimura.

“I just wanted to say that I’m a big fan,” said Supervisor Mar.

Many supporters cited a recently released San Francisco State University Study, which finds that Outside Lands generates “more than $60 million for the San Francisco economy,” and even claims the festival creates “683 full-time equivalent jobs” in the city.

Some Richmond residents demanded that all the festivals be cancelled, and, barring that, that they be issued the personal cell phone numbers of the Rec and Parks staff.

“It’s clear everyone supports these events,” said Supervisor Mar at the hearing’s conclusion.

“It’s a matter of collaboration.”

“A way to find your people”: the best of Bawdy Storytelling

Andrew Lam
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Dixie De La Tour wants you to talk about sex, for the sake of San Francisco’s reputation. “I am still baffled at how a city as cosmopolitan as SF could not realize that perverts tell the very best stories,” says the host of Bawdy Storytelling. That’s why she started the pervy monthly event that gathers up our city’s sex-positive to share their most tawdry tales of love and lust. Recent Bawdy themes have included cheap sex, public sex, cockblocking, and December’s “Dick in a Box” night (holiday sex!) Usually held at the Mission’s Blue Macaw, the five-year anniversary edition of Bawdy will occupy the stage of the Verdi Club on Sat/18.

We asked De La Tour to recount five of her favorites Bawdy stories in honor of the event’s milestone, which she did happily, including this scene-setting by way of introduction:

My career as a sexuality-based raconteur started innocently enough: about six years ago, a friend invited me to hear him tell a story in a café in the avenues…a story from his life, told to friends and strangers. While other cities have events like the Moth, we don’t, and I didn’t understand what I was going to see, but I ended up loving it. I was immediately hooked: all the stories were true, the person who stood in front of me was telling me a story from their life and how they’d made it happen…it seemed like the Ultimate Insider Guide, a roadmap to finding like minds and the way to create that unlisted San Francisco adventure. I saw immediately that storytelling was a way to find your people. 

Except for one thing: My stories were about the u­nderground sex scene… dungeons and sex parties, Craigslist hook-ups. With so many years as a sex event ‘party starter’ (my real superpower), there was not a single story I could share with these storytelling people without using the f-word. The event’s leader suggested I just shy away from profanity and allude to the sex in the story, but I balked: Sex is not an aside, sir; sex is the point of the story. 

So five years ago this month, my life took an interesting turn and I became a Sex and Storytelling show producer. Had anybody else ever seen fit to fill this niche, I would not be doing this today (and how glad I am that they didn’t: I truly love creating Bawdy Storytelling). I am still baffled at how a city as cosmopolitan as San Francisco could not realize that perverts tell the very best stories, but it just takes experiencing it once for many people to realize just how essential these stories are. Sex-related storytelling guarantees interesting true tales, and while Donna Reed is standing onstage recounting an awkward attempt to get laid or figuring out she likes girls after all, you’re ticking off factoids in the back of your head: How to find a sex party? Check. How to write a personal ad that can land you in a threesome? Check. Why a dildo needs to be flanged? Ahhh… got it. 

I truly believe storytelling is the antidote to loneliness and social anxiety – it may sound counterintuitive, but talking about sex is easier than talking about climbing Kilimanjaro; you know the listener is hanging on your every word when you’re talking about sex. So how’s about we all figure out this shit together?

CURTIS

For his 50th birthday, Curtis’ wife surprised him with a trip to Vegas and asked him to tell her his secret fantasy, the one he’d never dared to share. He told her he’d always wanted to have sex with a transgendered sex worker, and they invited Maria to our hotel and shared a night with her. She liked them and stayed after to talk and at one point she told them that at 14, she’d confessed to her mother she wanted to live her life as a woman. She then showed them the scars: six deep stab marks where her mother had tried to kill her. Curtis raised a toast and said they should all live our own lives as who and what we want to be, and asked them to drink to Maria’s bravery and self-knowledge. (There was not a dry eye in the house.)

SAHRA

Sahra was raised Mormon and expected to wait till marriage for sex, but at 18 she decided to lose her virginity to a guy she  was dating. The same week they  broke up, her parents found out and put her out on the street, so she called an older gentleman she knew who had a room for rent. Over dinner, he hit on her and when she got back to his house, he brought out a strap-on, a dominatrix outfit and other accoutrements and talked her through using them. She’d never even seen porn and had no idea what she was doing, but in one night she went from sexually inexperienced (she’d had sex three times, missionary position, period) to performing sexual acts that most people have never heard of. In the three years she lived there, she never slept in that room for rent; they repeated those acts for years and she later married him. [Dixie’s note: The reason I love this story is that Sahra had been coming to the show for 6 months, all the while thinking she had no stories of her own worth telling onstage. How wrong she was!]

CATIE

Catie wanted to go to an all-girl sex party, but didn’t want to go alone so she asked someone she barely knew to attend with her. While talking about not knowing what they were looking for, they were approached by a woman and presented to three pro-dommes, out for a good time on a Saturday night. They bound them, spanked them, used them sexually, and when she  wasn’t experiencing pleasure she was watching my partner-in-crime’s pleasure – until they fisted her, and Catie thought “I could never do that!’ When debriefing later at home, Catie told her this and her friend side-eyed her… Catie had been fisted, her friend insisted. She later tried to find those professional dominants to see if it were true. You’d think you’d know if you were fisted, right? Sometimes, you just don’t know. 

MOLLENA 

A handsome young blond man couldn’t stop staring at Mollena, and they ended up going out on a date. Later in bed during sex, he reached around her and grabbed her belly fat. She was appalled; grabbing her ass, she reasoned, was fine, but not her stomach! After he did it repeatedly, she yelled at him to stop and he replied, “I like it. Shut up.” She quickly learned that she was tiny compared to the type of big black women he lusted after…In fact, he liked her extra pounds so much that eventually, she came to like them, too. If you aren’t born loving your body, find somebody who does and let them pass along a little secondhand appreciation for what you’re packing. It’s not the ideal way to find acceptance, but is anything ideal, really? 

The final story is one that occurred offstage: 

JENNIFER

My husband and I go to Bawdy Storytelling every month, and one night we came home after the show, I sat him on the edge of the bed and announced a final storyteller that night: me. A year before, they’d gone to Burning Man and had given each other a hall pass to do anything without penalty, and then had come home with an unspoken “don’t ask don’t tell” policy in place. After hearing the true stories onstage that night, she felt compelled to tell him about the young cowboy she’d spent the week with and the adventurous “hell, we don’t know each other, so let’s live out our every fantasy together” non-stop sex they’d enjoyed. Her husband sat quietly and then announced “now THAT was the best story all night,” and he told her about his own hall pass adventures. After a year of being with each other every day, it took an evening out gave them the right place to tell each other everything. 

Five Hard[core] Years of Bawdy 

Sat/18 7 p.m., $15 presale

Verdi Club

2424 Mariposa, SF

www.bawdystorytelling.com 

 

 

Our Weekly Picks: February 15-21

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 15

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

Do Danish hipsters listen to American funk music? Apparently the Asteroids Galaxy Tour is keen to show its repertoire goes beyond the catchy pop you’ve likely heard on an Apple iPod ad (“Around the Bend”) or a Heineken commercial (“The Golden Age”). Asteroids, the brainchild of vocalist Mette Lindberg and producer Lars Iversen, gained popularity with their nostalgia-inducing sound on 2009 release Fruit (Small Giants). Lindberg and Iversen push that retro-funkiness even further in newest release Out of Frequency (B.A.R. Music), employing more horns and electronic organ sounds to add some oomph to Lindberg’s sweet tones. It’s as if technicolor was suddenly brought into this high-definition world. (Kevin Lee)

With Vacationer

8 p.m., $10–$15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com


THURSDAY 16

El pasado es un animal grotesco

Acclaimed Argentine director Mariano Pensotti found the roots of this play in a heap of random photographs salvaged from a defunct photo lab. The narrative impulse came from Balzac. The title he borrowed from an Of Montreal song. The result is an ingenious, giddy “mega fiction” that follows the tortuous careers of four 20somethings in Buenos Aires over a single decade, 1999 to 2009, with its intervening economic meltdown and a million other matters expected and unimagined — the detritus of an unwieldy but irresistible urge to meaning. Pensotti makes his San Francisco debut with this low-tech yet wildly ambitious theatrical production. (Robert Avila)

Thurs/16-Sat/18, 8pm, $20–$25

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

BUMP Records on Mark Bradford

Jam the playlist on the website for the Bay Area Video Coalition’s BUMP Records youth-run label and you’ll get a sampling of catchy R&B and hip-hop songs, polished sound from young people who produce and perform their own work, learning about the importance of having a voice in society along the way. But they’re not just radio-ready, these kids. At this SF MOMA event of creative souls established and on-the-rise, BUMP artists will reinterpret hair stylist cum artist Mark Bradford’s character exploration of a Teddy Pendergrass-Pinnochio character, Pinnochio is on Fire. To warm up the crowd, artist Reneke Djikstra will talk about the spirit behind her luminous portrait work. (Caitlin Donohue)

6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with $18 museum admission

SF MOMA

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org


FRIDAY 17

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dionysus: A Greek Comedy Rock Epic

trixxie carr and Ben Randle put the libation in liberation with the return of their Great Recession–era musical about a lil grape-stained deity named Tiny Dionysus (carr) who, after getting booted off Mount Olympus, comes to San Francisco, where a group of unemployed artists call on him for help weathering the general storm. Randle directs playwright, faux queen, and chanteuse carr and a cast of five as classical Greek and classic rock converge, along with puppetry, drag, and original carr tunes, until no one is sure who is what is where is when — is why it’s so liberating. (Avila)

Fri/17-Sun/19, 8p.m., $20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

(800) 838-3006

www.counterpulse.org

 

The FP

Ever since Snake Plissken played a sadistic life or death version of HORSE in 1996’s Escape from L.A., one question above all has been on the mind of serious filmmakers: what formerly non-threatening competition will inevitably become a bloodsport in our twisted future dystopia? With their directorial debut, The FP, the Trost Brothers have perhaps answered the question once and for all: Dance Dance Revolution (or at least something very similar to avoid trademark violations.) Make sure to strap on your most hardcore head band for the SF IndieFest’s 21+ DDR afterparty at 518 Valencia, where you can scout recruits for your video gang. The film opens theatrically March 16. (Ryan Prendiville)

7:15 p.m., $11

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

 

Tanya Bello and Alyce Finwall

If Tanya Bello and Alyce Finwall have anything in common besides their friendship and a performance history on the East Coast, it’s fierceness and a take-no-prisoners approach to dance. When the petite Bello’s is on stage, it’s difficult to watch anybody else. If she brings anything like that kind of intensity to her new “Sol y Sombra” for her not even two-year-old Project B company, we should be in for a treat. In one of their early SF performances Finwall Dance Theater’s quartet of women in “Wide Time” just about bounced off the walls. Yet despite its wildness, the work also was tightly controlled. Turns out that Finwall has choreographed for over 10 years. In this program she will premiere the duet “Angel”. (Rita Felciano)

Fri/17-Sat/18, 8 p.m., $10–$20

The Garage

975 Howard, SF

www.975howard.com

 

Trainwreck Riders

Trainwreck Riders: a collision of country twang and good old rock’n’roll interspersed with hints of bluegrass and notes of garage punk. Their songs feel nostalgic, even upon first listen, and tend to focus on heartbreak. Yet they sing the blues in a way that makes you want to jam out instead of tear up. Yeah, these guys aren’t your run-of-the-mill indie act; but there is something quintessentially indie about them. Maybe it’s their preference for flannel. Or that Peter Frauenfelder’s voice bears a striking resemblance to Isaac Brock’s. Clearly, they’re from San Francisco. Ghost Yards, the band’s fourth full-length release, drops this spring. (Mia Sullivan)

With the Blank Tapes, and the Human Condition

9 p.m., $14

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com


SATURDAY 18

Bonobo

Bonobo, aka Britain’s Simon Green, has long reigned as one of the masters of the post-party, chillout tracks that deters drinking headaches in both lounge and living room. With his 2010 release Black Sands (Ninja Tune), Green opted for a more lush, jazzy, and spontaneous sound that edged slightly away from downtempo and toward the dancefloor. Ninja Tune has just released a remix CD of Black Sands that uses Green’s tracks and vocals from Andreya Triana as rich source material. Green could stick in a slow burning rework to begin the set, such as with Letherette’s sublime version of “All In Forms,” then turn up the energy a notch with a track like Machinedrum’s percussive-heavy production on “Eyesdown.” (Lee)

9 p.m.

Mezzanine

444 Jessie

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com


SUNDAY 19

Girl Walk // All Day and Cheryl Dance Party

Partly a 71-minute long music video centered around Girl Talk’s latest mashup album All Day, Girl Walk // All Day is also an ecstatic musical feature following young one dancer as she bursts out of the confines of ballet class and dances her way across New York City. Financed through Kickstarter and filmed largely on the sly in public and not so public (Bloomingdales) spaces, GW//AD involves over 100 dancers, and takes a fanciful poke at the tendency of people to ignore the exceptional, even when it breaks, two steps, or tumbles into their daily life. This screening — followed by a set from CHERYL (NY) — will be suitably projected over the dance floor. (Prendiville)

7 p.m. $10

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com

 

Prime Cuts Film Festival Extravaganza!

The Scary Cow indie film co-op is one of those magical organizations that provide creative people with the network and resources to engage in collaborative creativity. The co-op’s mission is, simply, to cultivate a San Francisco film community equipped to make better films by connecting people who want to make films, and actually making them. (Genius?) Scary Cow has helped fund local films since 2007 and is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a screening of 13 shorts the co-op deems its “prime cuts.” Chosen shorts span the genres — from mockumentary to horror/comedy to sci-fi rock musical —and range from three to 24 minutes in length. (Sullivan)

4 p.m., $15–$40

Castro Theater

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.scarycow.com


MONDAY 20

Chucho Valdes and the Afro-Cuban Messengers

Perhaps the eminent Cuban pianist of his time, Jesus “Chucho” Valdes has spent four decades wowing audiences as performer, composer, and arranger. A co-founder of the legendary Latin American jazz-rock band Irakere, Valdes has won four Grammy awards, including one for his most recent album, Chucho’s Steps (Four Quarters). In Steps, Valdes pays homage to several renowned musicians, including John Coltrane, Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Joe Zawinul. His current band references Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, which produced driving, bebop sounds and served as a platform for younger jazz musicians to showcase their skills. (Lee)

7:30 p.m., $35–$75

Herbst Theatre

401 Van Ness, SF

(415) 621-6600

www.sfjazz.org

 

TUESDAY 21

Doug Stanhope

While his style of comedy has been called abrasive and caustic, Doug Stanhope simply tells it like it is on a variety of cultural and societal subjects, all with hilarious results. Since he won the San Francisco International Comedy Competition in 1995, he has earned a well deserved, wild reputation for his routines and shows, captured most recently on his live DVD/CD Oslo: Burning The Bridge To Nowhere (Roadrunner 2011). Last September Stanhope performed in a maximum security prison in Iceland, telling fans that if they committed a heinous enough crime to be sent there, they could see him for free — thankfully you’ve got an easier option tonight. (Sean McCourt)

8 p.m. $23.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

 

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On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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On the Cheap listings are compiled by Soojin Chang. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 15

Radical Directing Lecture Series: Shari Frilot San Francisco Art Institute, 800 Chestnut, SF. (415) 771-7020, www.sfai.edu. 7:30 p.m., free. Shari Frilot is the curator of the Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier Program. In this lecture, she will discuss the cinematic works that are being created at the crossroads where art, film, and new media technology meet.

THURSDAY 16

“Coloring Outside the Lines: Black Cartoonists As Social Commentators” panel discussion City College of San Francisco John Adams Campus, 1835 Hayes, SF. (415) 239-3580, www.ccsf.edu. 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m., free. Cartoonists are like modern jesters — they poke fun and offer criticism, but we can’t help but love them. Nowhere is this more apparent than in funnies that deal with race in our society. Join curator Kheven LaGrone and guests in a discussion of how black cartoonists have brought in a wide range of perspectives to racial issues and social prejudices.

“Project Censored with Mickey Huff” book release event Modern Times Bookstore Collective, 2919 24th St, SF. (415) 282-9246, www.mtbs.com. 7 p.m., free. Mainstream media seems to air more stories about cats running onto soccer pitches and M.I.A.’s middle finger than relevant news. Author Mickey Huff presents the top 25 underreported news stories you may have missed, and delves in to censorship issues in the relentless fight against Big Media.

“Beyond Cage-Free” panel discussion Port Commission Hearing Room, Ferry Building, 1 Embarcadero, SF. (415) 291-3276, www.cuesa.org. 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m., $5 suggested donation. The cage-free label promises eggs from unpenned hens, but can belie farm environments that are much more tragic than the happy picture on cartons would lead us to believe. Join the Center for Urban Education and Sustainable Agriculture in a panel discussion with Lexicon of Sustainability founder Douglas Gayeton, Ferry Plaza farmers, and local ranch owners.

San Francisco Childhood: Memories of a Great City Seen Through the Eyes of Its Children author discussion Green Arcade, 1680 Market, SF. (415) 431-6800, www.thegreenarcade.com. 7 p.m., free. This city has always been a hoot. Editor and author John van der Zee has put together writings dedicated to the magic of San Francisco by figures like Joe DiMaggio, Jerry Garcia, Margaret Cho, and Carol Channing. Come hear about how the city felt to them, and reflect on whether it’s the same for you today.

FRIDAY 17

SF Beer Olympics Impala, 501 Broadway, SF. (415) 982-5299, www.impalasf.com. 8:30 p.m., $10. To start the night, compete in a game of flip cup, beer pong, and relays with strangers, friends, and soon-to-be friends. Afterwards, Olympic champions and losers are welcome to meander upstairs for free admission to the Impala night club.

A night with photographer Robert Altman Wix Lounge, 3169 22nd St, SF. (415) 329-4609, www.wixloungesf.com. 7-10 p.m., free. Robert Altman not only survived the 1960’s but photographed some of the best parts of it. He will be talking about his work for Rolling Stone and his experiences photographing icons like Mick Jagger and Bill Graham. Come hang out with this all-around cool dude.

SATURDAY 18

“A Love Supreme” Harlem Renaissance art celebration First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St, Oakl. (510) 893-6129, www.uuoakland.org. 6 p.m.-9 p.m., donations accepted. The Harlem Renaissance brought on an explosion of culture and redefined music, art, and literature in American history. Join local queer poets of color in a delicious potluck dinner and music-poetry session to celebrate how cultural richness and literary splendor have not stopped growing.

The Dark Wave book release party Fecal Face Dot Gallery, 2277 Mission, SF. (415) 500-2166, www.ffdg.net. 6-9 p.m., free. You may know Jay Howell from his zine Punks Git Cut! where he sketched out an assortment of naked people, dogs, and boners. Howell is now bringing his majestic artwork as the backdrop of his new book — a literary tale of a black metal band’s disenchanted lead singer.

SUNDAY 19

Art Beat Bazaar music, poetry, and pop-up indie-mart Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck, Berk. (519) 841-2082, www.starryploughpub.com. 3-7 p.m., free. This is the first of the monthly community event Art Beat Foundation will be hosting as a way to showcase local musicians, spoken word artists, comedians, and visual artists. Let folk-rock band Upstairs Downstairs be the musical soundtrack to your trip to the quirky pop-up store, where you will find handmade treasures by artists like Cori Crooks and Brownie 510

Yiddish sing-along with Sharon Bernstein Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California, SF. (415) 292-1200, www.jccsf.org. 5-6:30 p.m., free. This musical event is one part of KlezCalifornia’s Yiddish Culture Festival, a three-day event for anyone who is interested in Yiddish literature, interactions between musical cultures, klezmer music, and/or Eastern European Jewish history. Lyric books will be provided.

MONDAY 20

Open mic night with Les Gottesman and Bill Crossman Bird and Beckett Books and Records, 653 Chenery, SF. (415) 586-3733, www.birdbeckett.com. 7 p.m., free. Les Gottesman and Bill Crossman are poets, activists, and professors who are coming to share their latest and favorite works in this literary night. Gottesman’s words are said to be goosebump-invoking and Crossman’s smooth piano skills are not to be missed.

TUESDAY 21

“Laissez les bons temps rouler” Mardis Gras party Jazz Heritage Center, 1320 Fillmore, SF. (415) 346-5299, www.thefillmoredistrict.com. 5 p.m., $5 for wristbands. Make it a merry Fat Tuesday this year by going out to the Fillmore District for a neighborhood party of stilt walkers, jugglers, and face painters. 10 Fillmore Street venues will have live music and Mardi Gras-themed drinks and treats for under 10 dollars.

“Youthquake: High Style in the Swinging Sixties” American Decorative Arts forum and exhibit Koret Auditorium at de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden, SF. (415) 750-3600, www.deyoung.famsf.org. 7 p.m., $15. Long hair and bellbottoms marked the fashion and music scene during the 1960’s, and a similarly defiant idiosyncrasy took over home décor. Join Mitchell Owens of Architectural Digest in a lecture on the bold and innovative interior style moves that were made during the exuberance of the youthquake.

“Feast of Words: A Literary Potluck” SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF. (415) 552-1770, www.feastofwords.somarts.org. 7-9 p.m., $10 in advance; $5 with a potluck dish; $12 at door. Writers are often thought of as caffeine junkies who survive off of coffee and cigarettes. But hey, we eat just like any other Joe Schmo. At this literary event, foodies and writers unite to share (both food and literature) and learn about local cultures and flavors.

Symmetry

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Symmetry

arts@sfbg.com

NOISE POP It’s been a few months since I’ve seen Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, and while many have dedicated countless hours selflessly contributing to the Ryan Gosling meme, which continues to grow and mutate like an uncontained bacterial infection, I’m still utterly and helplessly seduced by the score.

Allow me to draw a rash conclusion in the limited space allotted: Few films have coalesced around a form of sound as succinctly as Drive. On the one hand, the melancholy synth-pop music magnetizes the sense of nostalgia that saturates the film in a mythically neon Los Angeles of the 1980s, or the sprawl imagined in ’50s noir. On the other hand, the score motivates the emotional awakening of a lonely Gosling stricken by an unfolding love for his neighbor of angelic innocence.

What emerges from this tension between loss and erotics parallels none other than Vangelis’ extraordinary dystopian soundtrack for Bladerunner (1982). Through some kind of alchemical dissimulation, currents of machine generated sonic particles make visceral a disturbance within the dream distributed by Hollywood — a disturbance that nevertheless satisfies waves of desire as much as it unsettles.

Although Drive‘s score owes much to Cliff Martinez’s stark drum programming and warm synthetic melodies, some of the most arresting moments are due to Desire’s “Under Your Spell” and the Chromatics’ “Tick of the Clock.” Both songs belong to the musical vision of Johnny Jewel, a tireless producer also behind the Portland group of night stalkers, Glass Candy, and in general, much of the output from the Euro disco revivalist imprint, Italians Do It Better.

If you’re like me, and fiended for more Jewel after stumbling out of the theater under the spell, then you might have come across a few online interviews regarding his own mysteriously scrapped soundtrack for the film, encrypted with announcements for an unspecified future release date.

Then, just at the end of last year, 37 songs comprising nearly two hours of cinematic music quietly appeared like a gift from the void, under the appropriately vague title Symmetry / Themes for an Imaginary Film. The official statement in the press blurb insists, however, that this is not the allegedly trashed Drive score. Instead, it consists of a series of abstract experiments culled over the past three years from Jewel and partner Nat Walker on tone, mood, and structure, stripped of the lyrical motifs and pop formulas that tend to mark their signature work.

I have to admit I’m not entirely convinced by this back-story, but for all listening purposes, it doesn’t much matter. Symmetry draws on the same affective narrative underpinning Drive: As soon as a sense of artificial enclosure reaches the limit of relentless claustrophobia, a rupture slowly deflates from within, without any grand arrival or explosion. And while we may feel the euphoria of its release, the anticipation of an event ever more devastating to come, still crawls wonderfully under our flesh. *

GLASS CANDY, AND THE CHROMATICS

With Soft Metals, Omar and BT Magnum (DJ)

Feb. 24, 8 p.m., $19

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

NOISE POP CULTURE CLUB

Johnny Jewel on scoring, Glass Candy, and more

Feb. 25, 2:30 p.m., $10

Public Works 161 Erie, SF

2012.noisepop.com

Alerts

Andrew Lam
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0

yael@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY 15

Which way forward?

Four panelists will speak on their approach to creating progressive change in the United States. Speakers include Rocky Anderson, former mayor of Salt Lake City and presidential candidate with the Justice Party; Margaret Flowers of Physicians for National Health Program and organizer with Occupy DC; Tom Gallagher, former state legislator in Massachusetts; and Dave Welsh of the San Francisco Labor Council. With moderator Rose Aguilar of KALW’s Your Call radio. A forum organized by the 99% Coalition, a group focused on anti-war and non-violence activism working alongside Occupy San Francisco.

7 p.m., $10 suggested donation

Unitarian Universalist Church

1187 Franklin, SF

(415) 710-7464

www.sf99percent.org

 

Black history film and discussion

A screening of Freedom Riders, the film detailing the story of 400 groundbreaking Civil Rights Movement activists that rode on integrated buses throughout the South despite violent resistance everywhere they turned.

7pm, $5 suggested donation

2969 Mission, SF

415-821-6545

answer@answersf.org


FRIDAY 17

Join the Un-Conference

Reverend Billy Talen, the performance artist pastor of the anti-consumerist Church of Life After Shopping, will give a sermon Friday evening. That part is $10, and all proceeds go to whistleblower Bradley Manning’s defense. But that’s just the first night of a free, three-day “un-conference.” Participants will set their own agenda, and range from experts and stars like Daniel Ellsberg, Annie Sprinkle, and Colonel Ann Wright to your run-of-the-mill folks interested in justice for whistleblowers.

6 p.m., $10

UC Berkeley International House

2299 Piedmont, Berk

www.freshjuiceparty.com


MONDAY 20

Stand with prisoners

A demonstration to protest racism and economic injustice perpetuated by mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex and to stand in solidarity with prisoners and their families. This event is called by prisoners and sponsored by Occupy Oakland, reminding us that “there are more African Americans under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than there were enslaved in 1850.” It will feature speakers and musical performances.

10 a.m., free

1540 Market, SF for bus and carpool

www.occupuy4prisoners.org

 

Occupying elders

The Gray Panthers present a discussion with participants in Occupy Bernal and the Wild Old Women, Occupy Oakland, and Occupy San Francisco. How can elders contribute to Occupy? Come find out from the people on the ground, including Ginny Jordan of the Wild Old Women, who have shut down more banks than any other Bay Area Occupy group, and Tova Fry of Occupy Oakland.

1 p.m., free

Unitarian Universalist Center

1187 Franklin, SF

graypanther-sf@sbcglobal.net

Before Burning Man’s big announcement, some final bits and bytes…

Sasha Cuttler
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Before Burning Man’s big announcement, some final bits and bytes…

[UPDATE: Goodell posted details on the new system, which distributes remaining tickets through theme camps. We’ll have interviews and analysis tomorrow.]  Burning Man participants are anxiously awaiting tomorrow’s (Wed/15, release expected at 6:30 pm) announcement by Black Rock City LLC about how it will solve this year’s ticket fiasco that left most veteran burners – those who work through theme camps and art collectives to create the event’s infrastructure, entertainment, and artistic offerings – without tickets.

As I reported last week, sources say all or most of the remaining 10,000 tickets will likely be distributed through these theme camps and collectives, and representatives from many of the major ones have been invited to a meeting at Burning Man’s mid-Market headquarters tomorrow to discuss the new system.

Sources say the LLC is also trying to implement a system of having those who were awarded tickets on Feb. 1 register those tickets to specific individuals before they are mailed out in June and to create a regulated aftermarket ticket exchange in order to prevent scalpers from charging more than face value. The LLC has resisted creating such a system, which many burners have suggested since the event sold out for the first time last year and scalpers gouged buyers.

LLC board member Marian Goodell still has not returned my repeated calls for comment, so we can’t say exactly what the new system will look like, or how the LLC will decide which of the hundreds of theme camps that have registered over the years get tickets. Or how the registration system will work, or to sort out many of the other tricky details associated with this mess.

Hopefully, much of that will become clear tomorrow, and I’m sure there will still be many issues to explore then. But for now, I’d like to do a bit of a notebook dump to air a few of the interesting bits from the voluminous input that has been coming my way since I started writing (and being interviewed by the Sacramento Bee and New York Times) about the snafu a few weeks ago:

 

CHICKEN THE SCALPER

The LLC has been urging burners to freeze out ticket scalpers and refuse to pay more than face value for a ticket, urging the community to stick together. “You’re really hurting your community if you’re treating this like a commodity,” Goodell told me in late January, a message that I helped to convey.

As hundreds of burners commented on my stories and others, I was a bit surprised by the silence of longtime burner Chicken John Rinaldi, who has been a regular vocal critic of the LLC’s leadership since I first started reporting on Burning Man for the Guardian in late 2004 and who then became a major character in my book.

Chicken had predicted the new ticket lottery system would fail and be gamed by scalpers, so when I finally talked to him late last week, I asked about his relative recent silence. “I really don’t think I belong in this conversation because I’m the scalper,” he told me. “I got dozens of tickets and I’m planning to make tens of thousands of dollars.”

Chicken said he used confederates and multiple credit cards to game the system, just like the scalpers. And to justify his mercenary approach, he cited last year’s announcement by event founder Larry Harvey that he and the other five LLC board members are in the process of cashing out their ownership interest over the trademarks and logos for significant sums of money before turning control of the event over to a new nonprofit.

“They want capitalism. Larry wants to make millions of dollars off of this, so I’m going to make some money, too,” Chicken said. “I deserve that money.”

Now, I don’t know whether Chicken is telling the truth or just making a provocative point, but he does say that he’s only taking this tack because the LLC has commodified Burning Man and failed to heed community input and guard against scalpers. “If I ran Burning Man, I wouldn’t let people make tens of thousands of dollars off my members,” he said. “Our community needs some leadership.”

 

SERVING THE DISABLED

Many theme camp members have publicly said that their camps won’t be able to attend this year because so few of their campmates got tickets, making it impossible to pull off large scale projects, thus diminishing Black Rock City. But there was one story I found particularly poignant, and one that the LLC might be forced to help.

For the last six years, the Black Rock Department of Mobility (formerly known as Hotwheelz) has been providing shuttle services and electric wheelchairs to those with disabilities, helping them to get around a city where private cars aren’t allowed to drive during the week and where dusty, uneven terrain can to be problematic for the disabled.

But this year, camp founder Wayne Merchant told me, the Southern California-based camp scored just three tickets for its 27 active members. Already, he said they lined up almost 10 golf carts to do shuttles, nine electric wheelchairs for people to use, a few art cars with lifts, and at least 10 clients with disabilities have signed up for their services.

“I have the best core team that we’ve ever had on this camp,” he said, “but this is totally putting us out of business.”

He also raised the specter that without the voluntary services that this camp provides, the event itself might be out-of-compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), possibly exposing the LLC to legal liability: “It will basically dump all the ADA compliance on Burning Man.”

“Depending on what happens tomorrow,” said Merchant, who plans to the attend the meeting at BM HQ, “I could be totally be done with Burning Man.”

 

WAITING ON THE FEDS

Many burners have suggested the LLC deal with this year’s ticket demand issues by simply increasing the city’s population, but organizers have said that’s not really within their power. Not only are there transportation and other logistical constraints, but determining the population cap is at the sole discretion of the Bureau of Land Management, which manages the Black Rock Desert.

More precisely, it is at the sole discretion of Rolando Mendez, the BLM field manager for the region, who I interviewed last week, along with assistant field manager Cory Roegner. And one of the things I learned that I found most interesting is that the population cap won’t even be set until this June, after all the tickets have been distributed.

“Black Rock City LLC is free to sell as many tickets as they’re inclined to,” Mendez said. “That’s a calculated business decision on their part, but I would expect Black Rock City LLC to live by the population cap that I set.”

Right now, both the LLC and BLM are awaiting completion of an Environmental Assessment (EA) report on the LLC’s request for a five-year permit that seeks a population cap that would gradually increase from 58,000 to 70,000. A draft report is expected next month, after which there will be a public comment period, with the final report expected in June.

“I have not determined how to allocate that population cap over time,” Mendez said, expressing concerns over limited highway access to the site and other factors. “Too sudden of a change at too great a level could overwhelm the system.”

Both Mendez and Goodell say the two entities have a good working relationship. “We work together at problem solving and brainstorming,” Mendez said. “But right now, I’m depending on the EA.”

While he did indicate that Burning Man will probably be allowed to maintain at least its current size, as the LLC is relying on, even that isn’t guaranteed. It all depends on what the report says. So what happens if the LLC sells too many tickets now? Mendez said that’s not his call: “I don’t know the business strategy Black Rock City LLC is using or what their contingency plans are.”

 

CHANGING NUMBERS

When Goodell and Harvey called me on Jan. 27 to let me know that requests for tickets had far exceeded supply and to enlist my help in spreading the word that people should remain calm, rely on those in the community who had most of the extra tickets, and avoid buying from scalpers, I asked how many ticket requests there were.

They refused to tell me. I’ve been a journalist for 20 years, so I’m used to corporations denying me financial information that I’ve sought. And it wasn’t even a surprise from this LLC, which claims financial transparency but which has refused to disclose lots of information that I’ve sought over the years.

But as it became clear that their initial beliefs about how many tickets would be available within the community proved overly optimistic, and as pressure grew from both the Burning Man community and other journalism organizations, the LLC went into damage control mode and started to be a little more forthcoming.

So, how many ticket requests did they actually have? Well, it depends on who you believe. Goodell told the New York Times and other outlets that it was about 80,000 requests. But longtime event spokesperson Andie Grace – in a post that was widely lauded for a frankness and contrition that had been lacking in earlier communications from the LLC – wrote “we had nearly three times the number of tickets requested than we had available tickets.”

So, was 80,000 or 120,000? That’s a pretty big difference, particularly given that all the official posts so far have claimed that scalpers gaming the new system wasn’t as big a factor as is widely believed, although few have offered convincing evidence for that self-serving belief (after all, if it was scalpers gaming the system, than its creators made a mistake).

Personally, I’ve long believed that the LLC should be more transparent. As I discuss in my book, the LLC reveals general expenditure data (sometimes belatedly), but no information on revenues or current balances. The most recent report, for 2010, shows total expenses of $17.5 million, which includes a payroll of $7.3 million and fees to BLM and other agencies of more than $1.5 million.

Harvey has said that everything will be opened up once control is turned over to the nonprofit Burning Man Project in two to five years, but Chicken and others have complained that the board members will already have made off their their payouts by then and that those have contributed their sweat equity for decades have a right to know how much that is.

Maybe a bit more consistency in numbers and transparency now would help quell some of this restive community’s concerns, but clearly we’re not the ones making those kinds of decisions.

West Oakland’s Bikes 4 Life re-opening with rides for all

Andrew Lam
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West Oakland’s Bikes 4 Life re-opening with rides for all

“It keeps me occupied, not doing trouble in the summer, and after I’m gone it’s going to leave me with some experience,” says Lamar, a 16-year-old who works at Bikes 4 Life in the West Oakland community bike shop’s promotional video. After the completion of its remodels, the shop is re-opening tomorrow, Sat/11, and will be handing out free rides to the neighborhood kids.

The shop opened in 2009. It was a direct response to the spate of crime that was taking West Oakland’s youth away from creative, productive pursuits and into Juvenile Hall. Bikes 4 Life welcomes the neighborhood’s kids in for lessons in bike repair and maitenance — skills that have the added bonus of providing kids with the tools for gainful employment down the road. 

Making a difference, one spoke at a time. Tomorrow, Bikes 4 Life celebrates the changes to its workshop with an event during which it will give away 20 bikes to neighborhood kids, and get some of its program participants up on their soap box to talk about how the program has made a difference in their lives. 

Bikes 4 Life grand re-opening

Sat/11 noon, free

Bikes 4 Life

1600 Seventh St., Oakl.

(510) 452-2453

www.bikes4life.com

This art will move you: 1AM SF Gallery’s homage to truck graffiti

Andrew Lam
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0

“Graffiti is anti-corporation,” says Optimist, a long time Bay Area street artist in a Guardian phone interview. “Whereas advertisements on billboards are trying to sell you something, graffiti is trying to open your eyes to see who else is alive out there.” Spurred by this love of street art, Optimist partnered up with fellow street artist Plantrees to curate “Truck Show SF,” a group show which opens at 1AM SF gallery on Fri/10.

At the root of graffiti is an earnest longing for social emancipation, self-expression, and communication. Sadly, graffiti writers are often misunderstood, seen as vandals or gang members. “Truck Show” was put together to fight these stereotypes. The group show is a look at graffiti writers’ move from tagging on subway trains to box-style delivery trucks, and how this transition represents the ceaseless human desire for self-expression and unrestricted communication.

By making the show a charity event, Optimist says he wants to show that graffiti isn’t about “the ego or the fame of the name,” but is something that has the potential to serve as a creative outlet for the youth. “Truck Show SF” will feature 80 Bay Area writers. All profits will be dedicated to the non-profit organization Visual Element, a visual arts program in East Oakland that uses graffiti and mural painting programs to empower high school students.

The graffiti writers in the show range from burgeoning young artists to people who have been involved in graffiti for over 20 years. The sheer number of different individual artists who are coming together for a greater cause is notable. “People always say graffiti writers are taking away from society and they’re selfish,” adds Optimist. “This is a chance for graffiti writers to still do graffiti but at the same time give back to the younger generation who really needs the help.”

Graffiti has been around forever, of course. But long after the cave painting days, the art form experienced a rebirth in the 1970s and ‘80s in New York when a miserable economy bred social dissatisfactions in inner-city neighborhoods. During that era, the idea of the subway train as a moving canvas that could extend writing to the farthest corners of a city took hold. But due to transit regulations and chemical buffering methods which made it nearly impossible to spray on subways, graffiti had to conquer new ground. Optimist says that “the art of graffiti [has transitioned] from underground to up above ground and in to the streets.” Nowadays, you’ll see more graffiti on delivery trucks, which zoom through inner cities all throughout America.

“Graffiti is mostly concerned with letters and hand writing, so it’s all about inventing your own style to express yourself through the confines of the letters,” Optimist continues.

With “Truck Show,” Optimist wanted to show just how completely those confines could be ruptured. The exhibit showcases not only classic letterings, but the emerging style of graffiti shown in galleries.

One of the show’s artists Leon Loucher gets self-referential — he painted an entire night scene as the backdrop behind a figure spraying the first stages of his graffiti piece on a truck. Another artist, Alex Pardee, is more set on experimenting with surrealism. He paints insect-like creatures that burst out of trucks. Artists like Saze used the opportunity to make humorous responses to anti-graffiti sentiments, creating cut-outs of infamous buffers like Jim Sharp, placing the images in front of toy models and paintings of trucks.

“Graffiti is all about the moment,” says Optimist. And although the gallery is removed from the city streets, the pieces it will feature aim to capture the dynamism, action, and spontaneity that drive street art. To emphasize the liveliness of the art form, the actual sides of tagged trucks were brought in and placed amongst a collaged installation to grace the walls of 1AM.

In addition to the obvious similarities of a graffiti-themed art exhibition, Optimist was able to connect the street scene with his 1AM show by virtue of limited resources. “Graffiti writers usually have to deal with their work being next to or in the same space as [pieces done by] people they dislike.” He hopes that this show will achieve something the streets often fail to do, which is to create “a collective of graffiti writers who are joining forces to give back to something much greater – the youth.”

 

“Truck Show SF” opening reception

Fri/10 6:30 – 9:30 p.m., free.

1AM Gallery

1000 Howard, SF

(415) 861-5089

www.1amsf.com

 

Campaign to regulate health insurance premiums launched in SF

Sasha Cuttler
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Campaign to regulate health insurance premiums launched in SF

Representatives from Consumer Watchdog and other groups today launched a ballot measure campaign to regulate health insurance rates in California with an event outside the San Francisco headquarters of Blue Shield of California, which is in the process of substantially increasing health premiums for a second consecutive year despite sitting on billions of dollars in cash reserves.

Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court told us the measure and the campaign to gather the 505,000 valid signatures needed to qualify it for the November ballot would be similar to the group’s landmark 1988 campaign to pass Prop. 103, which regulated car insurance rates. That will include an extensive effort to mail petitions directly to voters and seek donations for the efforts, supplemented this time by an e-mail campaign.

“On 103, they got all but 100,000 signatures that way,” Court said, adding, “This is Prop. 103 for health insurance.”

The 800-word measure would require health insurance companies to publicly justify their rate increase requests, make the company CEOs affirm that financial data under penalty of perjury, and make the rate increases subject to approval by California’s Insurance Commissioner.

Significantly, the first person to sign the petition was U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who Court told us is co-chairing the campaign. “She has a real passion for the issue,” he said, describing how she was so outraged by a Blue Shield executive’s testimony to Congress over its double-digit proposed rate hike last year that she sponsored legislation to regulate health insurance premiums, which was defeated.

Blue Shield is officially a nonprofit company, and Court said its public filings show it has $3.4 billion in reserves, with is about 1400 percent more than the state requires. He also said many Blue Shield customers will be hit with a 15 percent rate hike on March 1, and he cited California Healthcare Foundation figures showing health insurance premiums have increased 153 percent in the last decade, while inflation increased by just 29 percent.

Calls to Blue Shield’s press office have not been returned, but I’ll update this post if/when they call.

Eternal return

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Eternal return

arts@sfbg.com

FILM Gregory Markopoulos was born in Toledo, Ohio, but his Greek heritage lights the way in critical appraisals of his refined and elusive body of work. Many of the films featured in the Pacific Film Archive’s “Seconds of Eternity” series are imagined on the stage of Greek myth. After leaving New York in 1967 with his partner Robert Beavers, an outstanding filmmaker in his own right, Markopoulos drew still closer to his ancestral home. He died in 1992, but Beavers, who will be on hand at the PFA to shepherd the films, has preserved the work for the Temenos, a unique archive and biennial outdoor screening cycle located near Lyssaraia, Markopoulos’s father’s home. This June brings another such event.

Markopoulos’s films have themselves long achieved mythic stature. He was a colossal figure during the heroic phase of the American avant-garde and then left it behind. Dissatisfied with exhibition standards, he withdrew his prints from circulation (the Temenos screenings represents the idealistic rejoinder). Remarkably, he requested that critic P. Adams Sitney excise a full chapter on his works from Visionary Film, generally considered the central critical survey of the American avant-garde. So Markopoulos went to almost unthinkable lengths to maintain the primacy of his early films (he continued making new ones, as well). Any opportunity to watch these ravishing films close to home is unusual.

Markopoulos once remarked that “locations and beautiful faces have been the backbone of my work,” and one sees that to an archetypal degree in Psyche (1947), the first film of his Du Sang, de la volupté et de la mort trilogy, made when he was still a teenage student at USC living across the hall from Curtis Harrington. Inspired by a Pierre Louÿs novella, the film replaces spoken language with dynamic color and framing. We begin with a man and woman crossing each other on a leafy Angeleno street: a few steps further and they turn back to consider what they’ve just passed. All that follows might be transpire within this instant: a languid fantasia hatched within a fugitive moment of lost time. Markopoulos frames the couple in deep focus two-shots, grazing shoulders and lips and tumbling toward dreams.

An evident poverty of means only concentrates the film’s withdrawal into a private world of frustrated beauty (across town Kenneth Anger was fashioning his more explicitly Dionysian Fireworks). The dive into inexpressible desire reaches a peak when Ralph Vaughn Williams’ “Serenade” suddenly drops out and the image snaps to a silent interlude of natural splendor bordering on abstraction — sea grass gorgeously superimposed upon the sea. This image gives magnificent form to the phrase “out of the blue” and overflows the frame in such a way as to shake loose the film’s more studied visual effects.

Markopoulos would later articulate in written form (“Towards a New Narrative Form in Motion Pictures”) what he set out to accomplish beginning with Psyche: “The film maker gradually convinces the spectator not only to see and to hear, but to participate in what is being created on the screen, on both the narrative and introspective levels. The magnificent landscapes of emotions, with colors brighter than the film viewer has ever been concerned with, begin to exist. The transient impact of meetings, handshakes, kisses, and the hours apart from these contacts becomes revealed in all its astounding simplicity.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59mrfKQRdQ

That “astounding simplicity” is readily apparent in A Christmas Carol (1940), a compressed bildungsroman evoking a richly embroidered fabric of memory with only a few spare images (mother setting the table, father looking up over his newspaper, figures dancing on a nearby rooftop). Twice a Man (1963) reveals the full extent of Markopoulos’ dream of a new narrative language. A psychologically fraught interpolation of the myth of Hippolytus and Phaedra (son seduced by mother and liberated from suicidal thoughts by a healer-artist), the film surfaces an internal state of emergency in a persistently emergent form.

Most remarkable is the densely interleaved editing by which Markopoulos folds multiple registers of time, color, and theme. Though often likened to other seminal works of the American avant-garde (especially Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man, 1961-64), Twice a Man‘s fractal form also recalls contemporaneous French films like Alain Resnais’s Muriel (1963) — though if anything Markopoulos’s cutting seems more evolved for its thoroughgoing commitment to simultaneity. Beginning with a ferry ride into blue New York, suggestive of any number of mythic crossings, there is an ever-sharpening concordance of different blocks of imagery. The protagonist’s central struggle to get out from under his mother and be reborn as his own person takes root in these syntactical somersaults. Indeed, this is where the modernist character of Markopoulos’s work shines through: a classical story embodied in the radical address of the senses. (You don’t need a neurologist to know that your brain gets a tune-up watching this film). Less successful is the cut-up spoken address that Phaedra delivers to her son, with which Markopoulos seems a little too assured of his genius. The haranguing pure speech dampens an otherwise brilliant film with a faintly misogynistic mist.

Though Markopoulos delved still deeper into myth with his Illiac Passion (1964-1967), he also gravitated towards more focused portraits of people and places in these years. San Francisco Cinematheque will screen Galaxie (1966), his anthology of New York people, in May. Meanwhile, the PFA sneaks in Ming Green (1966) before the epic Illiac Passion. The silent film gathers up images of the New York home Markopoulos was soon to leave as if for a bouquet. Edited in camera with great fluency, Ming Green revises the still life for cinema: the apartment’s objects sit in repose, vibrating with the articulation of color and residue of memory. Flourishing superimpositions put on a terrific show without abandoning the refined air of quietude. It’s unlikely that you’ll see a more exquisite short roll of film this year.

SECONDS OF ETERNITY: THE FILMS OF GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS

Feb. 9-16, $5.50-$9.50

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-5249

bampfa.berkeley.edu

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 8

Aphrodesia Afterhours Valentine’s Day Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, 100 John F. Kennedy, SF. (415) 831-2090, www.conservatoryofflowers.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $10.

Chocolate is hands down the best part of Valentine’s Day. Join local chocolatier TCHO’s chief chocolate guru, Brad Kintzer, for his demonstration on how to transform beans into bliss. Afterwards, grab a love potion from the Cocktail Lab, frolic amongst the orchids, and enjoy a live performance by Le Quartet de Jazz. Remember to take a picture in the photobooth — a night dedicated to chocolate is a night to remember.

Love on Wheels dating game Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. (415) 932-0955, www.sfbike.org. 6 p.m., $5 for SF Bicycle Coalition members; $10 for non-members. The cutest people always seem to be railing past each other on their bikes. The SF Bicycle Coalition is going to sit all you guys down so you can date already. Lovebirds will quiz three potential dates (hidden from view) and go on a date provided by one of the sponsors. This annual tradition is a cute hoot.

THURSDAY 9

“Animal Attraction” NightLife aquarium gallery and sex talk California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse, SF. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. Cal Academy’s weekly Thursday evening party, NightLife, is launching a new gallery for fish-lovers (and friends!) with a series of reproduction-themed talks. Various experts will be talking about mating strategies in the animal kingdom, penis bones of different species, and the sex life of Zodiac signs. Dr. Carol Queen from Good Vibrations will be sharing her knowledge about the science of orgasms. So let’s do like they do on the Discovery Channel.

“Cupid’s Back” sixth annual Valentine’s Day party Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF. (415) 348-0900, cupidsback.kintera.org. 8 p.m.-midnight, $30-35. Gay charity impressario Mark Rhoades is back — like Cupid, you might say — with this popular shindig that brings together oodles of hot men. DJ Juanita More will fluff the crowd, and it all goes to help out our invaluable GLBT Historical Society. Shoot your arrow and it goes real high …

“Go Deep” lube wrestling for the boys El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org/events/nightlife. 8 p.m.-11:30 p.m., $10–<\d>$15. What says romance more than watching half-naked queer boys with fantastical monikers like Yogzar and Red Dragon wrestling in a vat of lube? Slide your way into V-Day at this monthly grip ‘n slip put on by neo-Vaudevillian troupe SF Boylesque, with DJ Drama Bin Laden, a performance by the Bohemian Brethren, and Cajon food from Family Meal available on the back patio.

FRIDAY 10

Bardot A Go Go Pre-Valentine’s Dance Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011, www.bardotagogo.com. 9 p.m., $10. “Music by French people for everybody” is the motto of the neato longtime roving Bardot A Go Go — and that includes a bubbly beretful of cute folks who revel in 1960s pop glamour filtered through contemporary va-va-voom. Live band Nous Non Plus is très adorable, and DJs Pink Frankenstein, Brother Grimm, and Cali Kid bring French kisses galore. Plus: free hairstyling by Peter Thomas Hair Design, d’accord.

I Heart Some Thing The Stud, 399 9th St., SF. (415) 863-6623, www.studsf.com. 10 p.m.-late, $8. “We love love! We just love it!” scream the awesome queens of Some Thing, the mind-altering weekly friday drag show and party at the Stud. You may detect a hint of the sardonic in there, but the smart Some Thingers always cover their bases with a healthy dose of sincerity to go with the staged pop culture send-ups. heart-shaped performers include Glamamore, Manicure Versace, Cricket Bardot, and Nikki Sixx Mile. Afterhours dancing, too.

Mortified’s Annual Doomed Valentine’s Show DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. (415) 626-1409, www.getmortified.com. 7:30 p.m., $14 adv; $21 at door. Do you remember your first kiss when you went in for the gold, missed completely, and your lips puckered mid-air? Well, the folks at Mortified sure do. They have sorted through the oldest and nerdiest notebooks, letters, photos, and shoeboxes so that they can share with you their most humiliating romantic encounters. Reinvigorate your disdain for this holiday by taking comedic comfort in the mishaps of these thick-skinned Valentine’s veterans.

Ninth Annual Food from the Heart Festival Ferry Building Marketplace, 1 Ferry Building, SF. (415) 983-8000, www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com. Through Saturday. 5:30-8 p.m., free entrance. Nothing says “I love you” like food. Give the gift of a happy stomach to your lover this Valentine’s in the candlelit Grand Nave of the Ferry Building, with a night of dancing and eating. Revel in the magic of the waterfront, sip on wine poured by local Napa Vinters, and taste a scrumptious hors-d’oeuvre or five.

“On The Edge 2” erotic photography exhibition Gallery 4N5, 863 Mission, SF. (415) 522-2400, www.gallery4n5.com. Through Sunday. Gallery hours Fri., 4 p.m.-9 p.m.; Sat., 11 p.m.-9 p.m.; Sun., noon-5 p.m., free. Valentine’s Day may be about romance for some people, but for us it’s about getting naked. (And eating, but mostly getting naked.) This group exhibition features 400 pictures of artful sexiness taken by 25 erotic photographers who bring on the nudes.

SATURDAY 11

“Drunk with Love” with Carol Peters The Emerald Tablet, 80 Fresno, SF. (415) 500-2323, www.carolpeters.net. 8 p.m., $10. Carol Peters, a.k.a. “Velvet Voice,” is known for her passionate and amorous renderings. For one steamy night in light of Valentine’s Day, Peters will grace the stage to croon sensual tunes that capture the many dimensions of love.

Valentine’s Surprise SF Lindy Ball Womens Building, 3543 18th St., SF. sfswingjam.eventbee.com. 7:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m., $22 This Lindy Hop and Swing ball is actually the centerpiece of a three-day swing summit in celebration of romance (check the website for full line-up) — because what says, “I love you” more than artfully mopping the floor with your partner? We sure don’t know. Hoppin’ workshops and technique tune-up sessions complement the ball, which consists of a Lindy contest, live swing music, and a surprise 91st birthday celebration for classic movie star Ray Hirsch.

Watson’s “Naked at the Art Museum Scavenger Hunt” Legion of Honor, 34th Ave, SF. (415) 750-3600, legionofhonor.famsf.org. Through Sunday. 2 p.m.-4:30 p.m., $20. Who said museums had to be tame? Bring a lover or friend this weekend to the Legion of Honor for a sexy scavenger hunt. You will scope the halls for studly sculptures, titillating paintings, bathing beauties, and many sexy inanimate objects more. Museums will never be the same again.

SUNDAY 12

SF Mixtape Society’s “Under The Covers” music exchange and contest The Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF. (415) 440-4177, www.sfmixtapesociety.com. 6 p.m., free with mix. Don’t have someone to make a mixtape for this year? It’s OK. Your ex’s music taste was awful anyways! Put that playlist you love on a CD, cassette, or USB drive and have it land right in the ears of a random yet lucky someone. You’ll end the night with someone else’s coveted mix, and everyone will get to vote for the playlist with the best track listings and artwork.

MONDAY 13

Litquake Literary Festival presents: Love Hurts readings of grief-stricken passages of love and lust The Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF. (415) 440-4177, www.litquake.org. 7 p.m., $10. Ten Bay Area writers will give their own cynical (and mostly hilarious) twists on the forlorn words of some of the most melancholic and/or melodramatic novels ever written. Come sort out the parallels between drug dependency and romance in Valley of the Dolls, the masochistic plotline of The Story of O, and many more classics that well forewarned of broken hearts.

TUESDAY 14

Club Neon’s Eighth Annual Vaslentine’s Day Underwear Party The Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6884, www.theknockoutsf.com. This is THE event for fresh and nubile indie heartbreakers, stripping down to make you all “damn!” and stuff. One of our favorite annual pantsless throwdowns, with steamy rock DJs Jamie Jams and EmDee making you want to take it all off.

The Fifth Annual Poetry and Music Battle of ALL of the Sexes Uncle Al and Mama Dee’s Cafe at POOR Magazine, 2940 16th St, SF. (415) 865-1932, www.poormagazine.org. 7 p.m., $5-$20 suggested donation for dinner and show. Instead of scribbling your words in to a Hallmark card, show off your love this Valentine’s in rhyme and verse. All proceeds will support POOR magazine, a local arts organization that advocates education and media access for struggling communities. The theme is 1950s, but the beats will be timeless.

Love Story film showing and gala with Justin MX Bond Castro Theatre, 429 Casto, SF. (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. 8 p.m., $10 film only; $25 for gala tickets. Relive the drama, the tragic heartaches, and the swooning love story of the 1970 film classic. Ali MacGraw will be at the Castro mezzanine in person, “Theme from Love Story” will be sung by Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, and special guest Mx Justin Vivian bond will be doing a “sorry” medley.

Passion Punch Valentine’s day kickboxing class UFC Gym, 1975 Diamond, Concord. (925) 265-8130, www.ufcgyms.com. 6:30 p.m., free. Valentine’s got you foaming at the mouth? Let it out. This 60-minute class will incorporate dynamic boxing moves so that you can punch away all the annoyances you will be feeling by the end of this day.

The Crackpot Crones present “I Hate Valentine’s Day” sketch comedy and improv show The Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF. (415) 648-5244, www.crackpotcrones.com. 8 p.m., $20. Outrageous duo Terry Baum and Carolyn Myers are providing a public service for the romantically challenged. They will be making fun of everything Valentine’s related — especially silly little concepts like true love and soul mates. Belt along to the song, “The Twelve Days of Being Dumped,” and give your best evil cackle at this sketch comedy show.

Valentine’s Day Party with T.I.T.S and Uzi Rash Hemlock, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923, www.hemlocktavern.com. 9 p.m., free. There is no need for all the fuss, the fancy gifts, the cutesy ribbons, or the overpriced dinner. If you’re sick of the pink, come dance your anti-heart out at this doom punk show. Flowers wilt anyways.

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/8-Tues/14 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. Dirty Looks presents: City of Lost Souls, Fri, 8. “Mindscapes,” short films, Sat, 8.

CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS 1118 Eighth St, SF; www.dirtylooksnyc.org. Free. Dirty Looks presents: “Queer Conversations on Culture in the Arts,” with selections from the “Female Trouble” experimental shorts program and a conversation with Margaret Tedesco, Thurs, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. •Pickpocket (Bresson, 1959), Wed, 3:30, 7:15, and American Gigolo (Schrader, 1979), Wed, 4:55, 8:45. •Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau, 1946), Thurs, 3:05, 7, and No Such Thing (Hartley, 2001), Thurs, 4:55, 8:50. “Midnites for Maniacs: I’m Black and I’m Proud:” •I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (Wayans, 1988), Fri, 7:30; Pootie Tang (Louis CK, 2001), Fri, 9:30; CB4 (Davis, 1993), Fri, 11:30. French American International School presents: “I-Speak: Celebrating 50 Years of International Education,” Sat, 6:30. This event, $5-10; tickets at www.internationalsf.org. •Do The Right Thing (Lee, 1989), Sun, 2, 8, and Malcolm X (Lee, 1992), Sun, 4:15. “Love: Ali MacGraw:” Love Story (Hiller, 1970), Tues, 8. With pre-show gala performance and MacGraw in person; for tickets ($25-45), visit www.ticketfly.com.

ELMWOOD 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito; www.rialtocinemas.com. Free. “Community Cinema:” More Than a Month: One Man’s Journey to End Black History Month (Tilghman, 2012), Wed, 7.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. “Rafael Film Club:” “Jan Wahl,” Thurs, 1. Pina (Wenders, 2011), call for dates and times. “Mostly British Film Festival:” Route Irish (Loach, 2010), Wed, 7; Albatross (MacCormick, 2011), Thurs, 7. “2012 Oscar Nominated Short Films,” narrative and documentary (separate admission), Feb 3-9, call for times.

LAMORINDA THEATRES Four Orinda Theatre Square, Orinda; www.caiff.org. $12-15. “California Independent Film Festival,” 11 features, plus docs, shorts, and educational seminars, Feb 10-16.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Hollywood Dames: Beauty and Brains:” Intermezzo (Ratoff, 1939), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Documentary Voices:” The Green Wave (Ahadi, 2010), Wed, 7. “Seconds of Eternity: The Films of Gregory J. Markopoulos:” “Markopoulos: The Early Films (1940-49)” Thurs, 7; “Eros and Myth (1950-63),” Sat, 6:30. “Austere Perfectionism: The Films of Robert Bresson:” The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962), Fri, 7; Les dames du Bois du Boulogne (1945), Fri, 8:25; Lancelot of the Lake (1974), Sat, 8:30. “Screenagers: 14th Annual Bay Area High School Film and Video Festival,” Sat, 3. “Howard Hawks: The Measure of Man:” The Criminal Code (1931), Sun, 4:30; Bringing Up Baby (1938), Tues, 7. “African Film Festival 2012:” Viva Riva! (Munga, 2010), Sun, 6:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. Come Back, Africa (Rogosin, 1959/2012), Wed-Thurs, 6:45, 8:30. Drive (Winding Refn, 2011), Wed, 8:45. Into the Abyss (Herzog, 2011), Wed, 6:45. SF IndieFest, Feb 9-23. Visit www.sfindie.com for complete schedule.

SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $10-11. Domain (Chiha, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Ceylan, 2011), Feb 10-16, 2, 5:30, 8:30.

TWINSPACE CONTINUUM 2111 Mission, Third Flr, Ste 3, SF; www.blockreportradio.com. $15. “Human Rights and Hip-Hop Film Festival,” documentaries and shorts, Fri, 5; Sat, 6:30.

VOGUE 3290 Sacramento, SF; www.mostlybritish.org. $12.50. “Mostly British Film Festival:” Black Butterflies (van der Oest, 2011), Wed, 5; London Boulevard (Monahan, 2010), Wed, 7:15; The Great White Silence (Ponting, 1924), Wed, 9:30; A Passionate Woman (2010), Thurs, 5; Route Irish (Loach, 2010), Thurs, 7:30.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $7 donation. “The Second Coming of the Vortex Room:” The Second Coming of Suzanne (Barry, 1974), and Marjoe (Kernochan and Smith, 1972), Thurs, 8.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Bros Before Hos:” The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Cassavetes, 1976), Thurs, 7:30; “Female Trouble,” experimental shorts program presented by Dirty Looks curator Bradford Nordeen, Sun, 2.

Our Weekly Picks: February 8-14

Andrew Lam
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FRIDAY 10

The Great Gatsby: John Harbison’s Opera

Set 1920s New York wealth, style, and tragic disillusionment to chamber orchestration and what do you get? John Harbison’s ambitious opera, The Great Gatsby, which is, of course, based on the modern American classic by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ensemble Parallèle, a local contemporary opera company, describes The Great Gatsby as its “most ambitious project to date” and will be performing San Francisco composer Jacques Desjardins’ re-orchestration of Harbison’s masterpiece this weekend. Expect stunning costumes and rich scores that throw you back into the great American Jazz Age. And characters that take you back to high school English class. (Mia Sullivan)

Fri/10-Sat/11, 8 p.m.; Sun/12, 2 p.m., $35–$65

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Orchid

Striking from its secret lair, deep in the heart of Marin county, Orchid has become an international force to be reckoned with. Though European fans demand the band’s throbbing, Sabbathian riffs, powerful drumming, and soulful vocal incantations, stateside heshers are no less eager. The quartet’s local shows tend to be both raucous and intimate, and Orchid is known to treat the audience to an unreleased track or two. Come for the candelabras, the satanic gong, and the best in spiritual, throwback doom. (Ben Richardson)

With High Horse, Castle, The St. James Society

9 p.m., $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Los Campesinos!

Now on its fourth album — last November’s Hello Sadness — Wales-formed/not-Welsh group Los Campesinos! remains one of the most exuberant acts in indie rock. Thanks to a more streamlined sound on that last record, it’s also becoming increasingly possible to drop the “indie” altogether (although then again, considering the band’s ongoing zine Heat Rash and general openness to fans, there’s definitely still some of that original twee likeability.) Los Campesinos! will be joined by the always entertaining Parenthetical Girls with its enfant terrible bandleader Zac Pennington, who, if memory serves, broke every single glass he got his hands on last time at the Hemlock. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Parenthetical Girls

9 p.m., $21

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

 

SATURDAY 11

CHINESE NEW YEAR AT THE SYMPHONY

Everyone living in a world-class city catches them sometimes: those I’m-not-being-cultural-enough blues. Our lives are tough (THIS IS A JOKE). But just when we’re tucking our flannel sheets despairingly up over our azure foreheads, in prances an entry-level event that not only showcases one of SF’s most vibrant communities, but also employs superlative artistic minds. The symphony’s Chinese New Year performance features musical arrangements penned exclusively by Chinese and Chinese American composers, Carolyn Kuan conducting, and — oh yes — lion dancing with traditional snacks and tea during the family-friendly pre-concert reception. (Caitlin Donohue)

Reception 3 p.m.; concert 4 p.m., $15–$68

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

(415) 864-6000

www.sfsymphony.org

 

“Our Feet Speak the Rhythms of Our Hearts”

Feet, whether bare or in shoes, propel dance in space, but perhaps more complexly, in time. Every culture has realized that the foot — leaping, sliding, tapping — is the dancer’s most essential instrument. “Our Feet Speak the Rhythms of Our Hearts” is paying tribute to our being bipeds as seen, primarily, from Spanish language cultures. Flamenco and Tango, but also more clearly folkloric genres, make up the fare. SF’s Barbary Coast Cloggers may be outsiders but who wouldn’t welcome these infectiously intrepid dancers. Especially welcome will be La Tania, too long absent from San Francisco’s Flamenco scene. Now about another program by unshod feet — African, Indian, Indonesian? (Rita Felciano)

Sat/11, 8 p.m., $25, 6:30 p.m. champagne reception; Sun/12, 3 p.m.

Cowell Theater

Fort Mason Center, SF

(415) 345-7575

www.fortmason.org

 

The Grannies

Only San Francisco could produce a five-piece, all-male punk rock band whose members are known for their unceasing desire to dress up like old women and “fuck shit up.” (Their words.) To wrap your head around the Grannies live, think hard-edged, wailing death punk sound coming from people wearing multi-colored wigs, floral nightgowns, and black platform boots. This show is not for the faint of heart, as vocalist Special Edna has a propensity to rile up the crowd, chiefly by gyrating his hips and stripping. Make sure to listen up for their brash, funny, and occasionally vile lyrics, and don’t forget to bring your moshing wig. (Sullivan)

With Bottom, Cormorant

9 p.m., $7

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415) 252-1330

www.theeparkside.com

 

Social Distortion

On the road for more than 30 years now, Orange County punk stalwart Social Distortion is much like the hot rod you might see at a classic car show; it’s been nearly driven off the road on more than one occasion, and has had its fair share of nicks and scratches, but these days it’s a more polished and well-oiled machine than ever before. Touring behind last year’s excellent Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes (Epitaph), expect Mike Ness and company to deliver a night of punk rock love songs, blistering rockabilly, blues-infused swagger, and more than enough sing-alongs to leave you hoarse for the next week. (Sean McCourt)

With Frank Turner and The Sleeping Souls, Sharks

8 p.m., $32.50

Fox Theater

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

www.thefoxoakland.com

 

No Way Back: Optimo

Any major city should have one. The Haçienda. Fabric. The Paradise Garage. Certain spots that define a scene and a sound. In Glasgow, there’s Sub Club, and from 1997 to 2010 it was held down by DJs JD Twitch and JG Wilkes and their weekly show Optimo, where the duo gained a reputation for playing just about everything — Eurodisco, acid funk, post-punk — whether anyone else at the time thought it belonged in a club or not. Now that their show is on the road, they’re returning to SF for this edition of No Way Back. Whatever they play, it should sound rad on the cherry sound system in Monarch’s basement. (Prendiville)

With DJs Conor, Solar

10 p.m., $10-20

Monarch

101 Sixth St., SF

(415) 284-9774

www.monarchsf.com


SUNDAY 12

East Bay Tour de Bière

Fellow booze buds, the gauntlet of SF Beer Week has been thrown. After a tasting event or four will you be the one with a swollen belly and hops overdose, or will you rise like an effervescent head to the occasion? Here’s one event that will tip the pints in your favor: an East Bay brewery crawl made to be biked. Meet-and-greet the friendly sudsters at Trumer Pils, Linden Street, Triple Rock, Elevation 66, and Pyramid in between pleasant two-wheeled group jaunts. Hell, you’ll be so endorphin-blessed and booze-baited that afterward you just might make it to Sierra Nevada night at Downtown Oakland’s Beer Revolution. (Donohue)

9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., $25

Trumer Pils Brauerei

1404 14 St., Berk.

www.thegrandcru.org

www.sfbeerweek.org


TUESDAY 14

James Adomian

Let’s face it. Valentine’s Day is silly, and at times scary. So why not take the edge off and spend the night at a comedy show? James Adomian, an up-and-coming comedian known for his impressions of a range of characters including Orson Welles, Huell Howser, and Jesse Ventura, produces the type of politically and socially critical, laugh-out-loud material that reminds you how fucked up our world is; and that we must poke fun at it to stay sane. Gaining inspiration from the likes of Todd Glass, Paul F. Tompkins, and Peter Serafinowicz, Adomian consistently delivers intelligent, high-energy performances. (Sullivan)

With Jamie Lee, Ivan Hernandez, and Vince Mancini

8 p.m., $12

Milk Bar

1840 Haight, SF

(415) 387-6455

www.milksf.com

 

Yob

Atma, Yob’s transcendent, thunderous 2011 album, caused a critical sensation. NPR listeners new to the inimitable Eugene, Ore. band may have been pleasantly surprised, but for fans on board since 2002’s Elaborations of Carbon, the tersely-titled LP was simply the next step in a natural progression. Mastermind Mike Scheidt pairs the band’s shuddering, rubbery riffs with lyrics that belie metal’s usual tropes in favor of the cosmic and sublime, stretching his voice from the highest highs to the lowest lows. Valentine’s Day concertgoers should take the opportunity to subsume themselves in the stately repetitions and guttural, hypnotic power of Yob. (Richardson)

With Walken, Black Cobra

8 p.m., $13

New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com

 

“Love: Ali MacGraw”

It’s been more than 40 years, but fashionistas are still ripping off Ali MacGraw’s preppy-chic look from the 1970 tearjerker classic Love Story. Nobody else has rocked the swingy, parted-in-the middle locks and dark-eyebrow combo like MacGraw (I see you steppin’, Jordana Brewster, and you ain’t got it). Beyond her style-icon status, of course, MacGraw also has a colorful life and career: marriages to Robert Evans and Steve McQueen, a role on ’80s shoulder-pad juggernaut Dynasty, and, in recent years, using her star power to promote yoga and animal rights. Marc Huestis presents MacGraw in person for a special Valentine’s Day Love Story screening and tribute. Bring your own Kleenex. (Cheryl Eddy)

8 p.m., $25–$45

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com 


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Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Blue/Orange Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 450 Post, SF; (415) 474-8800, www.lhtsf.org. $43-53. Previews Wed/8-Fri/10, 8pm. Opens Sat/11, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm). Through March 18. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre performs Joe Penhall’s comedic drama about a hospital patient who claims to be the son of an African dictator.

52 Man Pick Up Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; (415) 647-2822, www.brava.org. $10-25. Opens Tues/14, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, Feb 15, and Feb 27, 8pm. Through March 3. Desiree Butch performs her solo show about a deck of cards’ worth of sexual encounters.

Geezer Marsh San Francisco, MainStage, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $25-100. Opens Thurs/9, 8pm. Runs Thurs and Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through March 18. Geoff Hoyle’s hit solo show returns.

BAY AREA

A Doctor in Spire of Himself Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Previews Fri/10-Sat/11 and Tues/14, 8pm; Sun/12, 7pm. Opens Feb 15, 8pm. Runs Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm; no matinees Feb 16, Feb 25, March 1, 8, and 15; no show March 23); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through March 25. Berkeley Rep performs a contemporary update of the Molière comedy.

ONGOING

Cabaret Young Performers Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldc C, Room 300, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 381-1638, cabaretsf.wordpress.com. $25-45. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Feb 19. Shakespeare at Stinson and Independent Cabaret Productions perform the Kander and Ebb classic in an intimate setting.

Glengarry Glen Ross Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.brownpapertickets.com. $26-40. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 24. David Mamet’s cutthroat comedy, courtesy of the Actors Theatre of San Francisco.

Higher Theater at Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Howard, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-65. Tues-Sat, 8pm (also Wed, Sat-Sun, 2pm; no matinee Wed/8). Through Feb 19. American Conservatory Theatre presents Carey Perloff’s smart and sexy world premiere.

Jesus in India Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-55. Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Feb 18, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm. Through Feb 19. Lloyd Suh’s American Hwangap is still one of Magic’s strongest premieres in recent years, an intriguingly funny and affecting cross-cultural tale of an absent Korean father’s return to the family he abandoned in West Texas 15 years earlier. Suh’s latest makes a disappointing contrast. There’s again an absent father (or two) and a sense of dislocation, but Suh’s “Jesus in India” does little or nothing with them. Director Daniella Topol assembles a bright cast headed by musically adept charmer Damon Daunno — on Michael Locher’s colorful, all-encompassing street mosaic set (comprised of floor-to-wall stickers, spray-paint, and mandalas around a central thicket of abandoned bicycle wheels) — but it all serves an insipid chronicle of the deity’s wayward teen years, which are spent getting high and playing in a punk band in India. Pure irreverence might have been worthwhile, but the “dude, fuckin’ &ldots; dude” humor here — one-note and rarely that funny — comes yoked to a fourth-quarter theme (basically a Henry IV thing, the sowing of wild oats ahead of the taking on of a “king’s” responsibilities) that proves even sketchier, not to mention out-of-step with these deliberately leaderless times. (Avila)

*Little Brother Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-32. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Feb 25. Custom Made Theatre Co. performs Josh Costello’s adaptation of Cory Doctorow’s San Francisco-set thriller.

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5 and 8:30pm. Extended through Feb 25. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. (Avila)

Olivia’s Kitchen Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.generationtheatre.com. $20-40. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Feb 19. GenerationTheatre offers this “remix” of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Private Parts SF Playhouse, Stage 2, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Feb 25. Graham Gremore performs his autobiographical solo comedy.

*True West Boxcar Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; (415) 967-2227, www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. The first installment of Boxcar Theatre’s four-play Sam Shepard repertory project, True West ushers in the ambitious run with a bang. This tale of two brothers who gradually assume the role of the other is one of Shepard’s most enduring plays, rich with humorous interludes, veering sharply into dangerous terrain at the drop of a toaster. In time-honored, True West tradition, the lead roles of Austin, the unassuming younger brother, and Lee, his violent older sibling, are being alternated between Nick A. Olivero and Brian Trybom, and in a new twist, the role of the mother is being played by two different actresses as well (Adrienne Krug and Katya Rivera). The evening I saw it, Olivero was playing Austin, a writer banging away at his first screenplay, and Trybom was Lee, a troubled, alcoholic drifter who usurps his brother’s Hollywood shot, and trashes their mother’s home while trying to honor his as yet unwritten “contract”. The chemistry between the two actors was a perfect blend of menace and fraternity, and the extreme wreckage they make of both the set (designed by both actors), and their ever-tenuous relationship, was truly inspired. (Gluckstern)

*Vice Palace: The Last Cockettes Musical Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; (415) 377-4202, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 3. Hot on the high heels of a 22-month run of Pearls Over Shanghai, the Thrillpeddlers are continuing their Theatre of the Ridiculous revival with a tits-up, balls-out production of the Cockettes’ last musical, Vice Palace. Loosely based on the terrifyingly grim “Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe, part of the thrill of Palace is the way that it weds the campy drag-glamour of Pearls Over Shanghai with the Thrillpeddlers’ signature Grand Guignol aesthetic. From an opening number set on a plague-stricken street (“There’s Blood on Your Face”) to a charming little cabaret about Caligula, staged with live assassinations, an undercurrent of darkness runs like blood beneath the shameless slapstick of the thinly-plotted revue. As plague-obsessed hostess Divina (Leigh Crow) and her right-hand “gal” Bella (Eric Tyson Wertz) try to distract a group of stir-crazy socialites from the dangers outside the villa walls, the entertainments range from silly to salacious: a suggestively-sung song about camel’s humps, the wistful ballad “Just a Lonely Little Turd,” a truly unexpected Rite of Spring-style dance number entitled “Flesh Ballet.” Sumptuously costumed by Kara Emry, cleverly lit by Nicholas Torre, accompanied by songwriter/lyricist (and original Cockette) Scrumbly Koldewyn, and anchored by a core of Thrillpeddler regulars, Palace is one nice vice. (Gluckstern)

*Vigilance Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; (415) 335-6087, secondwind.8m.com. $20-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Feb 25. Ian Walker (The Tender King) directs a sharp revival of his own lucid, involving 2000 domestic drama about three households brought to the brink by the arrival of a menacing working-class loner. Seamlessly staged in a single pair of rooms (designed by Fred Sharkey) representing all three suburban middle-class homes — as well as downstage on the street where dream-home lottery winner Duncan (an imposing Steven Westdahl) throws his beer cans and leers at the wives and children — Vigilance begins with three friends meeting under the pretext of a poker game. Host Virgil (played with gruff charm by a commanding Mike Newman) is a 30-something husband, father, and guy’s guy whose Montana-grown libertarian machismo compensates for the agro of a stormy marriage and rocky finances. He talks the suggestible, nebbishy Bert (a slyly humorous Ben Ortega) and the equally nerdy but independent-minded Dick (a nicely layered Stephen Muterspaugh) into forming a “committee” to deal with the troublesome Duncan. Walker’s well-honed dialogue brings out the false notes in the supposed pre-Duncan harmony right away, especially in the volatile arguments between Virgil and wife Marla (a sure Natalie Palan Walker) and the passive but more troubled confrontations between Dick and his distant, frustrated wife Cathy (a subtly fraught Kim Stephenson). While the insular, repressed lives of the moderately well off come across well, Duncan’s final monologue is a compressed, if dramatically necessary, attempt at voicing the other side. Vigilance strikes best at the buried politics of marriage and friendship, the latter further invoked in the concerned intervention of cop and childhood friend Frank (a sympathetic Leon Goertzen). (Avila)

Waiting for Godot Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa, SF; (415) 336-3522, www.tidestheatre.org. $20-38. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Feb 18. The fuchsia papier-mâché tree and swirling grey-on-white floor pattern (courtesy of scenic designer Richard Colman) lend a psychedelic accent to the famously barren landscape inhabited by Vladimir (Keith Burkland) and Estragon (Jack Halton) in this production of the Samuel Beckett play by newcomers Tides Theatre. Director (and Tides’ producing artistic director) Jennifer Welch layers the avant-garde classic with some audio accents as well (although Jon Bernson’s minimalist industrial soundscape is a bit low in the mix to be very effective). More compelling is the gentle, sad humor and couched intelligence captured expertly by Halton in the circular but deliberate rhythms of his hapless tramp. Burkland as pal Vladimir exudes a palpable presence as well, though lacks the same focus. Timing is all in vaudeville — the parallel universe from whence these tangible modernist archetypes hail — as well as in a play whose plot goes intentionally nowhere, or rather loops back on itself in an implied dance with eternity. The halting aspect to Tides’ staging gets compounded with the arrival of brash whip-cracker Pozzo (a suitably stentorian but inconsistent Duane Lawrence) and his pitiful slave Lucky (a haunted, generally sharp Renzo Ampuero, made up to look like a goth doll à la some Tim Burton movie). That said, the best moments here broadcast the brooding beauty of the play, with its purposely vague but readily familiar world of viciousness, servility, trauma, want, fear, grudging compassion, and the daring, fragile humor that can look it all squarely in the eye. (Avila)

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through March 24. Brian Copeland returns with a new solo show about his struggles with depression.

BAY AREA

Arms and the Man Lesher Center for the Arts, Margaret Lesher Theater, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; (925) 943-7469, www.centerrep.org. $38-43. Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2:30pm. Through Feb 25. Center REPertory Company presents George Bernard Shaw’s classic romantic comedy.

Body Awareness Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $34-55. Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through March 4. Aurora Theatre performs Annie Baker’s comedy.

Counter Attack! Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 444-4755, ext. 114, www.stagebridge.org. $18-25. Wed-Thurs, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through March 4. Stagebridge presents the world premiere of Joan Holden’s waitress-centric play.

Ghost Light Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Feb 16, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Feb 19. Berkeley Rep performs Tony Taccone’s world-premiere play about George Moscone’s assassination, directed by the late San Francisco mayor’s son, Jonathan Moscone.

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through March 25. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

The Pitman Painters TheatreWorks at Mountain View Center for the Arts, 500 Castro, SF; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Wed/8, 7:30pm; Thurs/9-Sat/11, 8pm (also Sat/11, 2pm); Sun/12, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks performs a new comedy from the author of Billy Elliot about a group of British miners who become art world sensations.

A Steady Rain Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, SF; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-55. Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/11 and Feb 25, 2pm; Feb 16, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Feb 26. Marin Theatre Company performs Keith Huff’s neo-noir drama.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Extended run: Sun/12, Feb 19, 26, March 11, and 18, 11am. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tues, 8pm. Ongoing through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

“Epic Romance” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 474-6776, www.improv.org. Tues/14, 8pm. $25. BATS Improv taps its collective quick-wit talents to conjure a romantic play on the spot.

“The Eric Show” Milk Bar, 1840 Haight, SF; www.milksf.com. Tues, 8pm (ongoing). $5. Local comedians perform with host Eric Barry.

“How We First Met” Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter, SF; www.howwefirstmet.com. Tues/14, 8pm. $40-75. Jill Bourque’s long-running holiday tradition is inspired by audience members’ real-life tales of romance.

“The I Hate Valentine’s Day Show” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.crackpotcrones.com. Tues/14, 8pm; Feb 19, 5pm. $20. “Sketch comedy and improv as a public service for the romantically challenged” with Crackpot Crones Terry Baum and Carolyn Myers.

“It’s Got to Be Love” Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com. Mon/13-Tues/14, 8pm. $20. Craig Jessup sings Rodgers, Hart, Gershwin, and Sondheim to benefit the San Francisco Arts Education Project.

“Love Bites — and So Did the ’80s” Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF; www.lgcsf.org. Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm. $15-30. The Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco celebrates the neon decade with this cabaret and musical extravaganza.

“Mortified! Doomed Valentine’s Show” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.getmortified.com. Fri/10, 7:30pm. $21. Also Sat/11, 8pm, $20, Shattuck Down Low, 2184 Shattuck, Berk. The awkward storytelling series returns with a romance-gone-awry theme.

“Our Feet Speak the Rhythms of Our Hearts” Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 345-7575, www.fortmason.org. Sat/11, 8pm; Sun/12, 3pm. $15-25. Tango and More Argentine Dance and World Arts West present this event featuring six ethnic dance companies, including La Tania, Ensembles Ballet Folklórico de San Francisco, Valverde Dance, Barbary Coast Cloggers, and Ballet Pampa Argentina.

“Through the Night” Brava Theatre, 2781 24th St, SF; www.communityworkswest.org. Sat/11, 7pm. $40-100. Daniel Beaty performs at this evening honoring author Nell Bernstein and activist Sujatha Baliga; proceeds benefit Community Works’ programs for Bay Area children, families, and communities impacted by incarceration.

“The Weight Game” NOHspace Theater, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/10-Sat/11 and Feb 17-18, 8pm. $15. Sarah Abbey performs her semi-autobiographical solo show about diets and self-esteem.

BAY AREA

“Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now 2012” Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.bcfhereandnow.com. Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm; Sun/12, 4pm. Also Feb 17-18 and Feb 24-25, 8pm; Feb 19, 4pm; Feb 26, 7pm, Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF. $10-25. Celebrate African and African American dance and culture at this multi-part festival, with works by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Kendra Kimbrough Barnes, and more.

Hippies do it better

Andrew Lam
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0
Hippies do it better

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE I am not given overmuch to squealing over technology, particularly weed technology. Over the past few months I have sampled candy cane-flavored rolling papers, a cannabis aphrodisiac shot, the Ziggy Marley-endorsed Marijuana Man comic book.

Mind you, I’m not complaining. But –- minus perhaps Humboldt Hemp Wicks –- none of those products have found their way into my everyday retinue. Until, that is, the subject of last week’s Herbwise, Randy Thompson of the vaporizer website Puff it Up, introduced me to a singular machine.

The Magic-Flight Launch Box is a thing of beauty. A clean maple wood box barely larger than a matchbox, it makes the black plastic tabletop models I once associated with vaporizing look clunky, wasteful. Vaporizing, university studies show, cuts down on the lung-coating tar that results from pipes and joints. Plus, it imparts a much cleaner marijuana taste –- perfect for the scores of cannabis connoisseurs who are popping up across the Bay Area.

Operating the Launch Box is simple. Insert the glass mouthpiece into the small round hole, a battery (two lithium batt’s and a recharger come with the starter kit) into the large round hole, press down for about five seconds, and inhale. No wall jack, no noise, no black plastic. The back of the box is engraved with a manifesto on what love is.

Obviously, hippies made it. Namely, a one Forrest Landry, who in a recent phone interview with the Guardian explained that the Launch Box’s ingenious design is a reflection of a New Age philosophy he’s cultivated over decades.

“Understanding the nature of communication allows us to understand the nature of community,” Landry says. “The vaporizer as a device is a communication event. We’re helping people breathe easier because of what we do.” The Launch Box’s backside is engraved with Landry’s personal philosophy on love (precious!)

He says the internationality of the product extends to the mindset of the company’s staff, who convene in a workshop located just outside San Diego. “Working with these tools is a kind of meditation. Doing this kind of work allows for an expanded awareness. You’re not aware just of how the tool is cutting the wood.”

Once an East Coast software developer, Landry changed careers upon his migration to California (to follow a lady love, he tells me). “I was thinking about what community of folks I want in my life.”

The answer was cannabis folks –- or more accurately, herbal folks, since the Launch Box can be used to ingest other plants like St. John’s wort (a useful tool for fighting seasonal affective disorder) and tobacco. Magic-Flight plans to start selling its own herbal blends in the next few months that can be vaporized solo or with cannabis.

The last thing that Landry wants is for Magic-Flight to be considered an activist company –- but that’s not to say that there’s nothing the federal government can learn from his philosophy.

“We’re not trying to shift the laws or policies per se, but we’re promoting the idea that love is enabling choice. We’re hoping the government realizes that enabling choice is a good thing.”

Will theme camps get the remaining Burning Man tickets?

Sasha Cuttler
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89
Will theme camps get the remaining Burning Man tickets?

Organizers of Burning Man are working on a plan to deal with the fact that most longtime burners were denied tickets to this year’s event – the result of a new lottery system that seems to have been gamed by ticket scalpers and agencies – and sources tell us it could involve distributing tickets through established theme camps and art collectives.

Black Rock City LLC board member Marian Goodell said last week, in comments to the Guardian and a post the next day on the LLC’s Burning Blog, that organizers are very concerned that so many members of groups that create most of the temporary city’s infrastructure, art, and entertainment didn’t get tickets this year. Surveys show only about 20-33 percent of established camp members got tickets, even less in some camps.

“It’s clear that the theme camps and art projects are a significant part of the community, and this situation is causing problems for them. That’s the part that will hurt us if we don’t take another look at this,” Goodell told me, saying that the LLC planned to gather information and make an announcement within two weeks.

Since then, the LLC has asked many established theme camps and art collectives for specific information on how many of their members still need tickets. There were 700 registered theme camps in 2010, the last year for which the LLC has made that information publicly available, as well as 275 registered art installations, and 1,000 art car permit applications.

Several sources tell us the LLC is considering canceling the open ticket sale that is scheduled for March 28, at which the final 10,000 tickets were to be sold online on a first come, first served basis. Instead, they would sell some or all of those tickets through the leadership of established theme camps and art collectives.

Goodell hasn’t returned Guardian calls on the idea, which sources say has not yet been formally adopted. Yet Goodell said the LLC has ruled out the idea of re-doing last week’s lottery of 40,000 tickets and replacing it with a registration and regulated aftermarket system that would deter gouging by scalpers, as many have suggested, so they don’t seem to have many good options available at this point.

Clearly, the idea of selling tickets through the camps would help reduce the widespread anxiety that much the city’s art and entertainment won’t come to fruition this year, which could have a detrimental impact on the offerings and character of Black Rock City. In my book, The Tribes of Burning Man, I argue that these camps and collectives are the basic building blocks of this culture and the city it creates each summer in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. As LLC board member Harley Dubois said on its website, “Theme camps are the interactive core of Burning Man.”

But she has also told me that it’s important for Black Rock City to be just as accessible to those who choose to camp independently or with small groups that don’t register for placement on the playa, so it’s unlikely that a decision to value theme camps and art collectives over other types of citizens would completely quell concerns over this year’s ticket fiasco.

What do you think?

Brews you can use

Andrew Lam
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0

caitlin@sfbg.com

BEER Even if your hankering for a beer paunch pales in comparison, say, to your desire to fit into your Valentine’s Day party dress, you have a responsibility to indulge during SF Beer Week. It’s not just a gustatory pleasure — consider yourself stumping for a burgeoning local industry. From Feb. 10-19, the fest will stage everything from urban beer hikes to beer-and-chocolate pairing events, beer-and-cheese couplings to a showcase of the finest in local bitter ales. Recently, the Guardian had the pleasure of a one-on-one (via email) with David McLean, the mastermind behind the superlative suds at Magnolia Brewery. He is also a member of the SF Brewer’s Guild, the organizing entity behind Beer Week. McLean shared with us his can’t-miss picks for hobnobbing and hops during this year’s festival. And yes, they include an stout made with Hog Island oysters.

SFBG: How has the beer scene changed over the past year in the Bay Area? Has there been a profound expansion? 

DM: Here and everywhere. We started in 2011 with about 1,700 breweries in the country. We are creeping up on 2,000 a year later and there are something like 800 or so known to be in planning. It’s safe to say craft beer is exploding right now. In the Bay Area, some notable highlights are Southern Pacific, Elevation 66, Dying Vines, Pacific Brewing Laboratories, and Heretic Brewing. There are plenty more on the way in 2012.

SFBG: Anyone new on the scene whose brews you’re excited to sample? 

DM: After many delays (all par for the course) it is super-exciting to have Southern Pacific Brewing Company open just in time for Beer Week. As the first new brewery built in San Francisco in many years — close to 10 — that one leads the pack in terms of excitement level. Another SF company just getting off the ground is Pacific Brewing Laboratories, which is starting to get its Squid Ink IPA and a couple of other beers into bars and restaurants. Almanac’s latest seasonal release, Winter Wit, should be hitting the streets just in time for Beer Week too, and it’s worth hunting down.

SFBG: A food-beer pairing event you think is a can’t-miss?

DM: Some pairings are just so perfect as to be timeless. They’re less about being creative and more about flavors that need no help fitting together. A personal favorite is oysters and beer, particularly oysters and certain kinds of stout, especially dry stouts. We go a step further at Magnolia with an oyster stout we make using Hog Island Sweetwater oysters in the beer. The effect is subtle, and maybe it is gilding the lily, but a few freshly-shucked Sweetwaters and a glass of that beer, Oysterhead Stout, is about as good as it gets. We’ll be spending all day on Valentine’s Day shucking a variety of oysters and serving them with that stout and some other good oyster-pairing beers until the oysters run out. If I were free on Mon/13, you might find me at the “Butcher and the Beer at the Beast and the Hare” — it’s a dinner with [4505 Meats butcher] Ryan Farr and Almanac Beer.

SFBG: Your tip for making it through Beer Week — how do you survive such a strenuous schedule?

DM: The well-timed vacation waiting on the other side of Beer Week helps maintain my sanity during Beer Week. With multiple events to work everyday, it’s a definitely a marathon and not a sprint. But it is also one of the premier celebrations of craft beer in the country and the sense of enthusiasm, camaraderie, and support from the beer community is more than enough to help us all get through the week. It’s energizing, actually. But don’t forget to hydrate.

SF BEER WEEK OPENING CELEBRATION

Fri/10 6-10 p.m., $65

Concourse Exhibition Center

635 Eighth St., SF

www.sfbeerweek.org

 

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