Leather

The Art of 8 Limbs

Leave your bag of tools at home this time, kinky community. Disciple, local expert in kinky grappling and cell popping, will be teaching this class in utilizing one’s own body as an implement in body impact play and striking. And just to make sure you’re not inflicting pain on unsuspecting parties, part of the night will be devoted to stretching exercises you can perform before you put the techniques into play.

Thurs/17 8-10 p.m., $20

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

Strap-ons and Smut

Add to your repetoire as a lover with this dual-mission educational evening. Rain DeGrey (she’s everywhere this week – check out Sun/13 for more of her) will be wielding her strap-on for the good of your sex life, and erotic writing educator Jenn Cross explores the art of the slutty love letter. The event at Mission Control is part of Femina Poten’s program there while the art-sex gallery remains physical location-less.

Thurs/10 7-9 p.m., $15

Mission Control

www.myspace.com/thelookingglassdungeon

Von Gutenberg Fetish Ball

Calling all latexuals: Von Gutenberg, purveyor of fine electric pink latex cigarette girl costumes and webmaster of all things tight and shiny is holding its extravaganza dress-up weekend, featuring three days of costumed craziness, taped nipples, and pumping beats to writhe to.

Thurs/10-Sat/12, $95 for weekend pass

Various venues, SF

www.vongutenbergblog.com

Give up the Bootie! Anal Play 101

No need to shy from the ass – here’s a class that take you through the paces of rimming, enemas, butt plugs, prostate massage, and more. Rain DeGrey, BDSM educator, rigger, and fetish model, takes you through the paces of one of her favorite pastimes.

Sun/13 2-5 p.m., $20-40

The Looking Glass Dungeon

Jack London Square, Oakl.

mail@thelookingglassarts.com

Mighty real

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

March 8, 2011

marke@sfbg.com

CULTURE It’s kind of insane that San Francisco hasn’t had a queer history museum until now. My goddess, we’ve even had a Barbra Streisand museum called Hello Gorgeous!! — not to mention museums dedicated to ophthalmology, old video games, Bigfoot, Walt Disney, and antique vibrators. So basically in the recent past, you could more easily explore the pedigree of a masturbating Yeti singing Yentl with a monocle than revisit the days of Harvey Milk and the Daughters of Bilitis.

Yet here was Amy Sueyoshi, co-curator of the brand new GLBT History Museum’s tremendous first show, “Our Vast Queer Past,” standing before an antique vibrator — and a huge box of dildos — in a display case marked “Sex Toys: Implementing Erotic Expression,” telling a group of attendees that high schools are booking tours at a brisk rate. “The kids don’t have any problem with the sex stuff. They want to know more about what the whole thing was about,” she said. “The only backlash we’ve had is in the comments section of SFGate.”

Sure enough, at a subsequent visit on a rainy weekend afternoon, there was an exuberant scattering of younger people inside the sleek, tiny, white-and-turquoise Castro storefront, checking out a wide and challenging array of queer historical inquiries. For despite the rather stodgy “GLBT” in the museum’s name — better, I guess than just Schwules Museum, or “gay museum,” the name of the only other institution of this kind, in Berlin — “Our Queer Past” is queer through and through, from its non-hierarchical “cluster model” curation, to its breathtaking range of diversity, to its unabashed approach to sex. There’s even stuff about straight people! Granted, it’s about the Rev. Lou Sheldon, but still.

Despite the ambitious scope of the exhibit, though, it’s anything but preachy or dry. On entering the museum, you’ll encounter instantly accessible items like the iconic Easter Egg pantsuits that Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin wore when they married in 2008 — already it seems so long ago — and Harvey Milk’s kitchen table. These items are part of the ongoing “Great Collections From the GLBT Historical Society Archives” display, which also includes oral interviews with local activists and personalities and rare video footage (scenes from the 1989 Miss Leather Contest played while I was there). A screen projecting archival photos from personal collections, many in black and white, casts its own spell: without any commentary or context, the pictures invite you to examine every detail for clues to the subject’s sexual identity.

ACT-UP protest chants and the sounds of White Night Riots scuffles lead you into “Our Vast Queer Past,” which is broken up into 23 small displays, each taking a different approach to aspects of the queer experience. “Vast” doesn’t just refer to the centuries of buried and unmeasured queer history, but also to the collection of the GLBT Historical Society, which forms the basis of the museum’s resources. Started in 1985 by a collective group of queer history enthusiasts headed by Willie Walker, a nurse driven by the growing AIDS crisis to preserve the gay present and past, the society’s archives are currently housed downtown, but the dream of an actual museum was never far off. Two years ago, perhaps encouraged by the Milk mania that gripped the gay community, the society set up a temporary exhibit at Castro and 18th streets. When the museum’s current space, a former flower shop, became available, the plan was set.

But that also meant, in preparation, sorting through the society’s 75,000 images and acres of papers, objects, and video and audiotape to form an engaging and cohesive narrative. Sueyoshi, associate professor of race and resistance studies and sexuality studies at San Francisco State, and her co-curators Don Romesburg, assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at Sonoma State, and Gerard Koskovich, an independent scholar, have done a fantastic job. At a recent public talk about how they faced such a daunting task, Koskovich explained the cluster concept of the individual displays. “We each picked out single objects that we thought represented a larger slice of the queer experience, and then built the displays around that to fill out the story in interesting ways. We let the object guide us, in a sense. We didn’t want to impose a huge timeline and struggle to fit everything in.”

The approach leads to an absorbing experience, with grouped-together objects pinging their implications off one another. The more you look, the richer the relationships become. Koskovich pointed out two objects in an display marked “Consuming Queers: The GLBT Marketplace.” One was a pink Xeroxed hand-drawn flyer from 1989 announcing “Let It All Hang Out Day,” inviting large, bare-breasted women of all backgrounds to “hang out” in the male-dominated Castro. The other was a slick brochure advertising Lazy Bear Weekend 2003 with a big Miller Lite logo on the cover. “You can see the contrast,” Koskovich said, “how larger size had been completely commercialized, if only for a certain ‘desirable’ population.”

Beyond body politics — and there are fascinating displays concerning that important subject, including “Lesbian Sex Wars,” which illustrates a contentious period in the 1970s when women faced off about pornography, S–M, and penetration — some of the displays evince a poetic quality. I was particularly drawn to the story of Jiro Onuma, a compulsive self-documenter whose records, letters, and photographs tell an eloquent story of what life was like for a Japanese gay man in America in the 20th century. From his 1919 Japanese passport to a striking picture of him with two male friends in the Topaz internment camp during World War II (“showing that even in these places of restriction, there can be room for pleasure,” as Romesburg described it), his tale is somehow a gentle rebuke to the stereotypical narrative of doomed and anguished closeted gay men in the middle of the last century.

Other things that stayed with me: the giant butterfly nets that were used by the Butterfly Brigade to catch gay bashers in the Castro in 1976; the artwork of Adrienne Fuzee, which emphasized queer women of color; a look at Lou Sullivan, trans man pioneer and one of the Historical Society’s founders, who died of AIDS at 39 in 1991; and the “On the Margin: Queers and Poverty” display that maps out queer life in the Tenderloin in the 1960s.

And of course I was drawn to “Bar Life: Going Out,” with its crazy quilt of matchbooks, dozens of them, culled from the extensive network of gay bars that used to make up North Beach and the Polk, among other neighborhoods. The Fickle Fox, Mind Shaft, Kokpit, Carriage Trade, Febe’s, The Plantation, The Baj — the names all call up images of hot pickled ghosts, still cavorting through whatever those places became. But the matchbooks also raised a question about the scope of the Historical Society’s holdings. At the public talk, I asked whether tokens like those matchbooks, which used to function as souvenirs of gay travel, had now been replaced in this smoke-free, online world with Facebook invites. And was the society collecting those?

“You know, I used to feel stressed out because we’re only now capturing just a tiny fraction of what’s going on the Internet,” Romesburg replied. “But not everything is virtual. Even without the Web, there’s just so much.”

That may be debatable. But I do know that “Our Vast Queer Past” and the GLBT History Museum are giving queers a sense that we live history in our daily lives, and presents us with a fascinating IRL Wikipedia of our once subversive activities.

“OUR VAST QUEER PAST” through December. Wed.–Sat., 11 a.m.–7 p.m., Sun, noon–5 p.m., $5. GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th St., SF. www.glbthistory.org

SPKR OUT

As the stars and St. Sylvester would have it, this is a perfect moment to open this museum — interest in the queer past, especially among smart nightlife denizens and young image makers, is still at a peak. In that spirit, and with the intention of creating a sense of living history beyond the museum’s walls, local DJ collective Honey Soundsystem is hosting a fundraising party for the museum called “SPKR: Evolution of the Queer Dance Floor” at Pubic Works on Saturday, March 12. The event will weave together sounds and photographs of five quintessential venues from San Francisco’s gay nightlife timeline: I Beam, End Up, Trocadero Transfer, Townsend, and The Box. Old school legends DJ Bobby Viteritti, DJ Steve Fabus, and lights and sound man Randall Schiller will make the past come alive and you all sleazy-sweaty.

SPKR: EVOLUTION OF THE QUEER DANCE FLOOR Sat/12, 10 p.m.–4 a.m., $20 advance. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com, Facebook: SPKR

Not for sale: An insider’s look at the battle to save KUSF

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

March 8, 2011

Not for sale: An insider’s look at the battle to save KUSF

MUSIC/CULTURE Normally, Irwin Swirnoff’s demeanor is upbeat, and I’d consider him to be one of the friendliest people I know. But from the expression on his face, I thought someone had died. Even before walking into the room, I felt there was a weird vibe. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“We just got sold and were taken off the air,” he replied.

Immediately and instinctively, without even really processing his words, I fired back, “Well, what are we gonna do about it?” Within minutes we worked ourselves into a frenzy, sending e-mails, texts, tweets, and phone calls to let everyone know that the nonprofit station where we volunteered, KUSF, had unfairly been ripped from us without any fair warning.

That morning, Jan. 18, was a blur of bad news. My parents were staying with me, and I had the day off. I needed a brief escape and turned to my volunteer work. It doesn’t really feel like work. I consider it more of a hobby, but calling it that would be selling it short. It’s like you can’t even have a hobby anymore without someone taking it away, selling it for $3.75 million and making it corporate. That’s exactly what the University of San Francisco did by attempting to sell out KUSF and the community in a veiled deal involving Entercom, America’s fifth-largest radio conglomerate; the University of Southern California; and Classical Public Radio Network (CPRN). We now know some of the details and overall shady manner in which these events transpired.

When I step back to think about our battle to save KUSF, one thing I find interesting is the current micro- and macro- momentum of power-to-the-people movements and how they can become contagious. It’s been said that tragedy brings communities together in astounding ways. Maybe the attempt to dismantle KUSF was the wake-up call some of us needed to pay attention to the behind-the-scenes politics of how, in radio, conglomerates are swallowing the little guys. This isn’t the first time this has happened — and it won’t be the last. But so many people were moved, inspired, and outraged enough to incite action, myself included. Maybe this is what we needed to get organized.

There was something really satisfying, in an old-school way, about a large group of people coming together to chant, clap, and scream “Shame!” in unison and really mean it. That’s how it went down Jan. 19 during the ill-conceived Q&A-style meeting staged by USF and its president, Father Stephen A. Privett. There was real energy in the air that night; it was sad, inspiring, and exciting all at once. It felt like I was going to a rumble, and I even dressed for the occasion, donning my leather biker jacket. When I got to the scene of the rally, I wasn’t disappointed by what I saw: sheer numbers, picket signs, “Save KUSF” hats and T-shirts, all materializing within hours. Most important, we had supporters willing to get vocal, with the passion to stand up and fight those who had wronged us.

At the end of February, the very community that USF and Privett sold out had raised more than $15,000, which is partly going to legal fees for what could be a precedent-setting denial of the station’s sale by the FCC. I think a lot of us were high on adrenaline in those first days after the station’s sale, especially because of the way it happened. Our cause has since garnered support from San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. The majority of our supervisors seem to understand what the station meant to the community. You can’t just sell 33 years of independent radio, culture, and rock ‘n’ roll history. It never should have been for sale.

Radio radio!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

March 8, 2011

arts@sfbg.com

Do you remember rock ‘n’ roll radio, as the Ramones once quizzed us, ever so long ago? If not that “Video Killed the Radio Star”-era iteration, a leather-clad punky nostalgia for Murray the K and Alan Freed, then do you remember college rock when it became the name of a musical genre in the early 1990s?

I’m trying to make out its faint strains now: a sound nominally dubbed rock, but as wildly eclectic and widely roaming as the winds blowing me over the Bay Bridge on this blustery, rain-streaked afternoon. I’m not imagining it. New, shaken-and-stirred PJ Harvey nudging family-band throwback the Cowsills. Nawlins jazzbos Kid Ory and Jimmy Noone rubbing sonic elbows with winsome Tim Hart and Maddy Prior. Brit electropoppers Fenech-Soler bursting beside Chilean melody-makers Lhasa. The ancient Popul Vuh tangling with the bright-eyed art-rock I Was a King. It’s an average playlist for KALX 90.7 FM, the last-standing free-form sound in San Francisco proper — though it hails from across the bay in Berkeley.

But what about SF’s own, KUSF? A former college radio DJ and assistant music director at the University of Hawaii’s KTUH and the University of Iowa’s KRUI, I’m one of those souls who’s searching for it far too late, even though I benefited from my time in college radio, garnering a major-league musical education simply flipping through the dog-eared LPs and listening to other jocks’ shows. Like so many music fans, I got lost — searching for the signal and repelled by commercial radio’s predictable computerized playlists, cheesy commercials, and blowhard DJs — and found NPR.

Today, I’m testing the signals within — the health of music on SF terra firma radio — by driving around the city, cruising City Hall, bumping through SoMa, and dodging bikes in the Mission. KALX’s signal is strong on the noncommercial side of the dial, alongside the lover’s rock streaming from long-standing KPOO 89.5 and the Strokes-y bounce bounding from San Jose modern rock upstart KSJO 92.3, whose tagline promises, “This is the alternative.” But KSJO’s distinct lack of a DJ voice and seamless emphasis on monochromatic Killers-and-Kings-of-Chemical-Romance tracks quickly bores, slotting it below its rival, Live 105.

Dang. I wind my way up Market to Twin Peaks. Waves of white noise begin to invade a Tim Hardin track. KALX’s signal fades as the billowing, smoky-looking fog rolls majestically down upscale Forest Hill to the middle-class Sunset. But I can hear it — with occasional static — on 19th Avenue, and later, in the Presidio and Richmond.

Throughout, KUSF’s old frequency, 90.3, comes through loud and clear — though now with the sound of KDFC’s light-classical and its penchant for swelling, feel-good woodwinds. The music is so innocuous that to rag on it feels as petty and mean as kicking a docile pup. But I get my share of instrumental wallpaper while fuming on corporate phone trees. It’s infuriating to realize that it supplanted KUSF, the last bastion of free-form radio in SF proper. Where is the free-form rock radio? This is the city that successfully birthed the format in the 1970s, with the freewheeling, bohemia-bred KSAN, and continued the upstart tradition with pirate stations such as SF Liberation Radio. Doesn’t San Francisco deserve its own WFMU or KCRW?

FEWER INDEPENDENTS, MORE CONSOLIDATION

Online radio — including forces like Emeryville’s Pandora and San Diego’s Slacker Radio — provides one alternative. This is true for listeners who use the TiVo-like Radio Shark tuner-recorder to rig their car (still the primo place to tune in) to listen to online stations all over the country. The just-launched cloud-based DVR Dar.fm also widens the online option.

Nevertheless, online access isn’t a substitute for free radio air waves. “We get the wrong impression that everyone is wired, and everyone’s online, and no one listens to terrestrial radio,” says radio activist and KFJC DJ Jennifer Waits. “Why then are these companies buying stations for millions of dollars?”

Waits and KALX general manager Sandra Wasson both point to the consolidation that’s overtaken commercial radio since deregulation with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 — a trend that has now crept onto the noncommercial end of the dial.

As competition for limited bandwidth accelerates (in San Francisco, this situation is compounded by a hilly topography with limited low-power station coverage) and classical radio stations like KDFC are pushed off the commercial frequencies, universities are being approached by radio brokers. One such entity, Public Radio Capital, was part of the secretive $3.75 million deal to sell KUSF’s transmitter and frequency. Similar moves are occurring throughout the U.S., according to Waits. She cites the case of KTXT, the college radio station at Texas Tech, as akin to KUSF’s situation, while noting Rice and Vanderbilt universities are also exploring station sales.

“The noncommercial band is following in the footsteps of the commercial band in the way of consolidation,” Wasson says, from her paper-crammed but spartan office at KALX, after a tour of the station’s 90,000-strong record library. Wire, Ringo Death Starr, and Mountain emanate from the on-air DJ booth, as students prep the day’s newscast and a volunteer readies a public-affairs show. “Buying and selling noncommercial radio seems to me very much like what used to happen and still does in commercial radio: one company owns a lot stations in a lot of different markets and does different kinds of programming in different markets. Deregulation changed it so that 10-watt stations weren’t protected anymore. There were impacts on commercial and noncommercial sides.”

Lack of foresight leads cash-strapped schools to leap for the quick payout. “Once a school sells a station, it’s unlikely it will be able to buy one back,” says Waits. “Licenses don’t come up for sale and there are limited frequencies. They have an amazing resource and they’re making a decision that isn’t thought-through.”

DREAMING IN STEREO

There are still people willing to put imagination — and money — behind their radio dreams. But free-form has come to sound risky after the rise of KSAN and FM radio and the subsequent streamlining and mainstreaming of the format.

Author and journalist Ben Fong-Torres, who once oversaw a KUSF show devoted to KSAN jocks, cites the LGBT-friendly, dance-music-focused KNGY 92.7 as a recent example of investors willing to try out a “restricted” format. “They were a good solid city station that sounded quite loose,” he explains. “But even there they weren’t able to sell much advertising because they were limited to the demographic in San Francisco and they couldn’t make enough to pay their debts.”

Nonetheless, Fong-Torres continues to be approached by radio lovers eager to start a great music station. “I’ve told them what I’m telling you,” he says. “It’s really difficult to acquire a stick in these parts, to grab whatever best signals there are.” This is especially true with USC/KDFC rumored to be on a quest for frequencies south of SF.

“There are some dreamers out there who think about it,” muses Fong-Torres. “A single person who’s willing to bankroll a station just out of the goodness of his or her heart and let people spread good music — someone like Paul Allen, who did KEXP in Seattle.”

THE FIGHT TO SAVE KUSF

The University of San Francisco has touted the sale of KUSF’s frequency and the station’s proposed shift to online radio as a teaching opportunity. But the real lesson may be a reminder of the value of the city’s assets — and how easily they can be taken away. “We’re learning how unbelievably sacred bandwidth is on the FM dial,” says Irwin Swirnoff, who was a musical director at the station.

Swirnoff and the Save KUSF campaign hope USF will give the community an opportunity to buy the university’s transmitter, much as Southern Vermont College’s WBTN 1370 AM was purchased by a local nonprofit.

For Swirnoff and many others, listener-generated playlists can’t substitute for the human touch. “DJs get to tell a story through music,” he explains. “They’re able to reach a range of emotions and [speak to] the factors that are in the city at that moment, its nature and politics. Through music, they can create a moving dialogue and story.”

Swirnoff also points to the DJ’s personally selective role during a time of corporate media saturation and tremendous musical production. “In the digital age, the amount of music out in the world can be totally overwhelming,” he says. “A good station can take in all those releases and give you the best garage rock, the best Persian dance music, everything. One DJ can be a curator of 100 years of music and can find a way to bring the listener to a unique place.”

Local music and voices aren’t getting heard on computer-programmed, voice-tracked commercial stations despite inroads of satellite radio into local news. In a world where marketing seems to reign supreme, is there a stronger SF radio brand than the almost 50-year-old KUSF when it comes to sponsoring shows and breaking new bands for the discriminating SF music fan? “People in the San Francisco music community who are in bands and are club owners know college radio is still a vital piece in promoting bands and clubs,” says Waits. “There are small shows that are only getting promotion over college radio.”

“It was a great year for San Francisco music, and we [KUSF] got to blast it the most,” Swirnoff continued. “It’s really sad that right now you can’t turn on terrestrial radio and hear Grass Widow, Sic Alps, or Thee Oh Sees, when it’s some of the best music being made in the city right now.”

PIRATE CAT-ASTROPHE — AND THE DRIVE TO KEEP RADIO ALIVE

Aside from KUSF, the only place where you could hear, for instance, minimal Scandinavian electronics and sweater funk regularly on the radio was Pirate Cat. The pirate station was the latest in a long, unruly queue, from Radio Libre to KPBJ, that — as rhapsodized about in Sue Carpenter’s 2004 memoir, 40 Watts From Nowhere: A Journey into Pirate Radio — have taken to the air with low-power FM transmitters.

After being shut down by the FCC and fined $10,000 in 2009, Pirate Cat is in limbo, further adrift thanks to a dispute about who owns the station. Daniel “Monkey” Roberts’ sale of Pirate Cat Café in the Mission left loyal volunteers wondering who should even receive their $30-a-month contributions. Roberts shut down the Pirate Cat site and stream on Feb. 20. Since then, some Pirate Cat volunteers have been attempting to launch their own online stream under the moniker PCR Collective Radio.

“We would definitely start our own station,” says Aaron Lazenby, Pirate Cat’s skweee DJ and a Radio Free Santa Cruz vet. “The question now is how to resolve the use of Pirate Cat so we don’t lose momentum and lose our community. We all love it too much to let it fizzle out like that.”

Some people are even willing to take the ride into DIY low-power terrestrial radio. I stumbled over the Bay Area’s latest on a wet, windy Oakland evening at Clarke Commons’ craftsman-y abode. The door was flung open and a colorful, quilt-covered fort/listening station greeted me in the living room. In the dining space, a “magical handcrafted closet studio station” provided ground zero for the micro-micro K-Okay Radio — essentially a computer sporting cute kitchen-style curtains and playing digitized sounds.

A brown, blue, and russet petal-shingled installation looked down on K-Okay’s guests as they took their turn at the mic. And if you were in a several-block radius of the neat-as-a-pin house-under-construction and tuned your boombox to 88.1 FM, you could have caught some indescribably strange sounds and yarns concerning home and migration. I drove away warmed by the friendly mumble of sound art.

Who would have imagined radio as an art installation? Yet it’s just another positive use for a medium that has functioned in myriad helpful ways, whether as a life link for Haitians after the 2010 earthquake or (as on a recent Radio Valencia show) a rock gossip line concerning the Bruise Cruise Fest. As Waits puts it, radio is “about allowing yourself to be taken on a musical journey rather than doing the driving yourself online.” Today it sounds like we need the drive to keep that spirit alive.

Soul with a “Q”

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

March 4, 2011

MUSIC How do you know spring is coming in San Francisco? Trusty Mission venue El Rio starts throbbing once a month to the sweet soul sounds of yesteryear, and a hot, youthful crowd of queer dancers (and friends) floods the spacious patio to capacity. Although there are many parties in the city that cater specifically to gay men, Hard French is one of a handful that has built a successful formula on welcoming everyone — lusty femmes, trans jocks, DIY freaks, fairy stoners, vinyl junkies — while staying true to its spirit of retro-tune vitality and lean toward old-school R&B.

The packed party, which takes place every first Saturday, is a (hopefully) warm weather affair — its season opener Sat/5 will also mark its one-year anniversary. We e-mailed the six-member Hard French team, composed of Devon Devine, Tina Faggotina, Jorge P., Amos G., DJ Carnita, and DJ Brown Amy, to talk about their success and plans for future Frenching. True to the party’s collective spirit, and like a funky hot-pink Borg, they preferred to answer as one entity.

SFBG Hard French has quickly established itself as a major Bay Area queer destination. Obviously you wanted to be successful, but was the reaction a surprise?

Hard French We came together to throw a party where twinks and chubsters and queens and plushies and punks — basically all our friends — could come together to French hard and dance it out every month. As we move into our second year, our intentions haven’t changed a bit (although we want more leather daddies). We saw room in our communities for a different kind of dance party a place to dance in the sunlight with a bunch of weirdos. It just caught on real fast. People saw Hard French as a special thing. Since our community inspires us, being able to enrich it in the way that Hard French has is awesome.

We’ve ended a number of our parties with “Everyday People” by Sly and The Family Stone. It’s kind of our unofficial anthem because it seems to capture the essence of what we do and what we believe in. Hard French is for everyone; we are all everyday people who just want to ensure that our everyday brothers and sisters have a great time. It’s really our crowd that creates the right vibe and aesthetic — it of course helps that they are crazy sexy babes who make us want to dance ourselves into a frenzy and make out all day long. Luckily, our Jiggalicious Hard French Dance Club photo booth captures the ones we missed so we can seek them out later.

SFBG Let’s talk about soul — it seems like such a natural match, queers and soul, yet Hard French is unique in bringing the two together. It also seems like soul and San Francisco in general make a great pair …

HF Unbeknownst to many, the Bay was a hub of soul music during the 1960s and ’70s. It was home to better-known artists like Sly and The Family Stone, as well as some of our more personal favorites like Sugar Pie De Santo and Darondo. The soul resurgence today is largely due to the San Francisco’s wealth of amazing soul DJs who have been digging through records and throwing great parties here for a while now. We’ve been honored to have some of these DJs, like Lucky of Soul Party and Primo of Oldies Night, be our guests at past Hard Frenches. We’ve heard from these DJs and others that the difference between our party and other soul parties in the city is that we reach out to everyone. We don’t just attract “soul people” — we attract everyone, which makes us unique.

SFBG This question seems kind of mean, since there’s so few left, but what’s your favorite record store for soul scores?

HF Rookie Ricardo’s Records (www.rookyricardosrecords.com) in the Lower Haight. The owner, Dick Vivian, has been dancing to these 45s since they were originally pressed — and he now shares them with all the DJs who take an interest. Also, Dick is our total record daddy dream babe. The aforementioned soul scene in San Francisco would not exist without Rookie’s.

SFBG Any new record scores the DJs are stoked to debut on Saturday?

HF “Since the Days of Pigtails” by Chairmen of the Board, “Do the 45” by the Sharpees, Ruby Lee’s “Gonna Put a Watch On You,” and “Soulful Dress” by Sugar Pie DeSanto. Plus a bunch more — we’ve basically spent the last three months digging through acres of vinyl.

SFBG What’s been the most memorable Hard French moment so far?

HF Our most mind-altering moment had to have been the Hard French Winter Ball we threw in January at the haunted Brookdale Lodge in the Santa Cruz mountains. More than 400 people — from Santa Cruz locals to folks as far as New York, Toronto, and New Orleans — dressed in their finest formal fashions and completely took over the lodge. Seriously, every room was booked, the hotel bar was overrun, there were drag queens putting on face in the bathrooms, queers frenching in every nook and cranny, and even double dutch happening in the famous Brook Room, a beautiful room with a river that runs right through it! The event was hosted by the one and only Lil Miss Hot Mess, who curated a show that featured jaw-dropping performances by Glamamore, Alotta Boute, and others. There was also a dance contest, a highly competitive coronation … Oh, and we made it snow — inside the hotel. No big deal.

SFBG Any plans to take the party abroad? Will you ever be able to say Hard French is big in Japan?

HF Though it’s easy to forget, Canada is abroad, and Hard French has had mind-blowing parties in Toronto (as well as New York). But yes, we do have a few other international buns in the oven. As a note, if anyone out there wants to pay for six round trip tickets, a few hotel suites, a couple pitchers of margaritas, and some regional cuisine, Hard French will roll into your town and throw the best damn dance party that Iceland, Croatia, Zanzibar, or wherever has ever seen.

SFBG Describe Hard French in a haiku.

HF: Make out with hot babes/ Inside soul shaken sunlight/ Daytime adventure.

HARD FRENCH

Sat/5 and every first Sat., 3 p.m.– 8 p.m.

$7 (free BBQ from 3–5 p.m.)

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF.

www.hardfrench.com

Hot sexy events: March 2-8

Andrew Lam

March 2, 2011

Those bedazzled emissaries of SF morals, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, are once again emerging from their pancake makeup-encrusted cloisters to spread the good word. Indeed, on Sun/6 they’ll be hosting not one, but two benefits involving liberal doses of alcohol and private part-focused celebrations.

In SoMa, the sisters invite you to take a sacrament of all-you-can-drink Bud Lite at Chaps to benefit the group’s anti-hate crime “Stop the Violence” campaign. Of course, pants are optional – the event is entitled, after all, Jock Off. Eee! Pacifism is sexy! Pull your trousers halfway up to trek across town for the concurrent Quadroboob, whose ra-ma-tazz lineup (including the spectacular Lady Monster) guarantees that even as you are raising funds for the Breast Cancer Emergency Fund, you will be simultaneously putting your knockers to good use. That means shake ’em, ladies (and gents).

Leather Alliance Weekend

A whirling dervish of chaps and kicky hide hats descends on SF this week, as the Leather Alliance and its entourage gear up for the Mr. Leather Contest on Sat/5 at the Hotel Whitcomb – oh, and the SF Citadel meet and greet (Thurs/3) and assorted beer busts and cigar celebrations in honor of the chosen one. Last year was New Mexican transman wheelchair-user Tyler McCormick‘s time to shine, who will wear the leather crown this year?

Thurs/3-Sun/6 $15-35 for weekend’s events

Various locations, SF

www.leatheralliance.org

International Sex Workers’ Rights Day Art XXX-hibition

Not to be confused with the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (that’s December 17), International Sex Workers’ Rights Day brings a whole bunch of creative works by and of those that supply society with a much-needed dose of climax-for-hire. Annie Sprinkle will be selling her prints, and St. James’ Infirmary workers Rachel Schreiber and Barbara DeGenevieve will share their photographs of sex workers at the center.

Fri/4 6-9 p.m., free

Million Fishes Art Gallery

2501 Bryant, SF

www.millionfishes.com

Kinky Dating

How does the dating game change when the night of your dreams ends with you in shackles and him holding a whip and a plan? Edukink’s one-off workshop explores the etiquette of courting in the BDSM world, lessons that all you kinksters can get down on regardless of sexual orientation. The class is part of the program’s monthly “Newcomer’s Series,” so feel free to stop by even (especially) if you’re new to the dungeon scene.

Fri/4 7:30-10:30 p.m., $15-25 sliding scale

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org

Quadroboob

Over 12 performers will prance about Bernal Heights’ superlative dyke bar to raise funds for breast cancer. Bonus round: the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s Sister Sara Femme Fatale is emceeing, implying that more of her otherworldly siblings may well be in attendance.

Sun/6 5-9 p.m., $10-20 suggested donation

Wildside West

424 Cortland, SF

(415) 647-3099

www.thesisters.org

Jock Off

An anti-hate crime benefit with unlimited booze and jock contests to boot? Where else would you spend the end of your weekend, one might well ask.

Sun/6 5-9 p.m., $8

Chaps

1225 Folsom, SF

(415) 255-2427

Asking for What you Want in the Bedroom and Beyond

You’ll never know what will make you feel slutty, shameless, and satiated if you can’t ask for it! Which is why your perpetual best friend in the bedroom, Good Vibrations, has contracted a one Marcia Baczynski, sex educator, to elaborate on the intricacies of sexual proposition. How to make asks in a way that is inspired, assertive, and sensitive will be covered, as will be handling rejection and the best course of action to take if what you asked for turns out to suck.

Tues/8 6-8 p.m., $20-25

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

Leather forever

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

March 1, 2011

Every year since 1989, 25 movies are added to the National Film Registry, deemed worthy of preservation for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Their current number encompasses Eraserhead (1976) and Enter the Dragon (1973), the Zapruder and Hindenburg footage, The Muppet Movie (1979), “Let’s All Go to the Lobby,” Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger films, and This is Spinal Tap (1984) — as well as, you know, Citizen Kane (1941) and stuff. Which is to say, it is one of those ways in which democracy just kinda works.

However, even a list as diverse in age, genre, theme, and purpose as this one is capable of heinous omission, the kind that makes you question the whole system and wonder why somebody just doesn’t do something. You may not even want to continue here, because what you are about to read will infuriate you. It is this: there are 550 movies at present in the National Film Registry. And not one is Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986).

You could argue it is not there because the Library of Congress does not want future generations to know a truth that ugly — but then, how to explain the presence of Hoosiers (1986)? Simply, it is an injustice that can only have been orchestrated by evildoers who hate freedom. They do not want you to rock.

Fortunately here in San Francisco we know how to rock out — yes, frequently with our cocks out — and will be doing so particularly when the Found Footage Festival returns to the Red Vic. This is good news enough, but it is made extra-special because in addition to their debonair live commentary on the latest batch of mind-boggling VHS clips culled from garage sales and thrift stores, FFF curators Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett will be presenting a 25th-anniversary screening of Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

In 1986, Jeff Krulik and John Heyn had the extremely good idea of taking their camcorder to the late Capital Centre stadium in Landover, Md., before a Judas Priest concert and letting the fans outside just … be. The resulting anthropological study went viral in an analog era, spurring countless homages and imitations, eventually getting a theatrical release (opening for Chris Smith’s longer 2001 documentary Home Movie — much as Dokken opened for the Priest!) and, once a few music rights issues were ironed out, a deluxe DVD. Not afraid to milk it, the filmmakers later explored further vistas of hot pavement in Neil Diamond Parking Lot, Yanni Parking Lot, Michael Jackson Arraignment Parking Lot, Pro Wrestling Sidewalk, Science Fiction Convention Lawn, and so forth. Proving there is, perhaps, endless variety between groups of people who are exactly like each other.

Which in Heavy Metal‘s case means shirtless, drunk, mullet or teased-haired, and absolutely certain everything either sux (like Dokken) or rüles (duh). What really sucks, of course, is everything not metal, like the musical and societal blight known as “that punk shit.” With inimitable logic, one young buck opines “Madonna can go to hell. She’s a dick.” But he’s unusually verbose — most of the kids here stick to sentiments short enough they’ll have no trouble heaving them onto the cement a couple hours later.

The titanium-strength cluelessness on display is enhanced by one’s knowledge that this sea of fist-pumping testosterone was shortly about to worship the rare metal lead singer who not only looked like he’d stepped out of the Folsom Street Fair, but probably actually had. (Denial is the most powerful weed: even I was shocked along with the rest of a 1978 Queen concert’s Kalamazoo, Mich., audience when Freddie Mercury acted kinda … you know. I mean, who’d have guessed?)

Heavy Metal will just be only one of the many amazing artifacts excavated and edited for your edification by the Found Footage Fest dudes, who have been doing this for seven years now and might actually make money at it. Their current program of video oddities from the golden age of VHS includes montages devoted to ventriloquism instruction (oddly creepier even than the sex-hypnosis segment), real-life Elmer Fudds’ hunting calls, things strange even by public-access-channel standards, horrifyingly dull seminar speakers, and the inevitable vintage exercise-video grotesquerie.

Other highlights include a bit from How to Spot Counterfeit Beanie Babies (what Pruehler calls “this adorable crime”), the lowest of all Linda Blair career lows, and something called “Rent-A-Friend,” which stares into an existential void more terrifying even than Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL

Fri/4–Sat/5, 7:15 and 9:15 p.m., $12

Red Vic

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

Spirit and soul

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

February 25, 2011

Having uprooted from his native Atlanta to chase his musical dreams in L.A., Cody ChestnuTT and his band, the Crosswalk, landed a deal with Hollywood Records and got as far as recording and mixing a debut album, Venus Loves a Melody, before things went south. In 2002, ChestnuTT took his bass, drum machine, keyboard, guitar, organ, microphone, and headphones into his bedroom and single-handedly crafted his debut album, The Headphone Masterpiece (Ready Set Go). The 99-minute double CD contained 39 songs that ranged from Southern-fried rock to hip-hop, and was laced with enough dastardly and divine deeds to provoke any listener. All of it was written, produced, and performed by ChesnuTT on his four-track cassette recorder.

The success of the album is evident in how it permeated the American fabric. ChestnuTT’s fame soared when Grammy Award-winning band the Roots decided to cover his song “The Seed” for its 2002 album Phrenology, with ChestnuTT on guitar and vocals. The video for “The Seed (2.0)” was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award and an MTV 2 Award. The Headphone Masterpiece was nominated for the Shortlist Music Prize in 2003. ChesnuTT’s music figured in Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), and his performance in the Dave Chappelle movie Block Party (2005) was a throwback to the days of Wattstax. Thom Yorke of Radiohead considers ChesnuTT a musical genius, and the opening riff to Headphone Masterpiece‘s “Look Good In Leather” has become a ubiquitous commercial ditty.

Though ChesnuTT continued to tour and release singles, it wasn’t until his 2010 reemergence project, the six-track EP Black Skin No Value (Vibration Vineyard), that he truly returned, brandishing a lyrical approach that had evolved beyond the more “profane” content of Masterpiece. In his words, “the EP was a social commentary rooted in spiritual and soul traditions.” Due later this year, his next album, Landing On a Hundred, promises to be as passionate and powerful as the rest of his work. On the eve of a show at Yoshi’s, I caught up with him.

SFBG Why did you title your EP Black Skin No Value?

Cody ChesnuTT I wanted to form something that was ironic. To blend all I think could be a literal application to what I feel is going on. We’re facing a low perception of self-worth in the community — from media, the justice system, and so many different things — and at the same time the content of the body of work itself is in stark contrast. We have to recognize that there’s value in acknowledging or addressing the issue. Off the top, it was an ironic approach to deal with what I feel is a crisis in the community.

SFBG Although there’s community focus in the album, most of the songs seem intimate.

CC Yeah, it’s straightforward. I wanted to take a sound-bite songwriting approach. Straight to the point, to cut through all the noise we’re hearing in the media right now. Something that awakens the spirit in some way, or opens chakras that make sure you’re really paying attention to what we’re facing right now.

SFBG Somewhere between rock, funk, folk, soul, hip-hop, and experimental sounds, The Headphone Masterpiece and its success left you in an interesting position in the world of music. I know you didn’t cultivate this crossroad or gray area, so how do you work within it?

CC I don’t think about it. I just create. I do know that the last experience put me in a position where I had some advantages as an artist that gave me room to do what I wanted to do. That’s the beauty of my career — it set me up to go either way. Gave me the freedom to create whatever I wanted to create. What’s your take on it?

SFBG In The Headphone Masterpiece you’re able to show so many sides in an industry that demands two-dimensionality. You go from “Serve This Royalty” to “Smoke and Love,” then you write “Bitch, I’m Broke” and throw in a lullaby to your son. You’re showing yourself as a fully-formed human being. I feel that kind of complexity confuses the machine.

CC I think that is to my advantage. I was hoping, and still hope, that it will inspire other people to look at the humanity of it all. To not be so focused on sure-thing in-the-box marketing. I think exposing the range of human emotion makes the landscape much more interesting. Not to get too deep off into the philosophical aspects of creativity, but I’m reading a piece on Nietzsche’s self-criticism and The Birth of Tragedy, and [Nietzsche is] saying that after the first three Greek tragedies, there were no more to create — the rest are just copies. That’s why we need to expose the range and bring in new content, because, in my opinion, certain subject matter has been exhausted. There’s more to explore within the spirit. It’s what drives me to do what I do.

SFBG What can we expect from your show?

CC I’m playing all new material with a 10-piece band. I’m really interested into tapping into that root soul music. The kind of music that heals, the kind that touches. It’s what I want to feel and hear right now. And there seems to be a consensus that people really want something a little more substantive, closer to that feeling that they had when they were growing up. Right now is an interesting time to bring back that healing vibration, that element. I’m not the only one doing it. I just want to contribute to what I think is a renaissance, a resurgence, a restoration, so to speak, of soul. So much of the soul has been sapped out of our music.

CODY CHESNUTT

Sat./26, 8 and 10 p.m.; $25

Yoshi’s San Francisco

1330 Fillmore, S.F.

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

Dad, Millennium. Millennium, Dad

Andrew Lam

February 14, 2011

San Francisco is composed of many worlds: in one, men and women wear suits and whiz up high-speed elevators to the top of the Transamerica building (until recently, I held to the belief that the uppermost floor is built entirely from Lindor truffles and boasts a wine fountain). In a cross-town galaxy, “Transamerica” might be a documentary on one’s downstairs neighbor.

But the great thing about the city is that its various worlds frequently overlap – in laundromats, at last call, and in the occasional rare dining experience that leaves everyone happy and full, even in the wallet. Case in point: Millennium, an artful mash-up of hippie and high class.

This weekend, I experienced just such a coalescence when my father, a venerable business-type, flew in for a meeting and informed me that the highest occupiable floor of the Transam Pyramid is just an inconveniently small conference room. After introducing him to my roommate Bella Donna (formerly Donald), I wanted to treat him to a taste of the city that would satisfy his unabashedly carnivorous appetite, impress him with SF’s classy culture, and yet not leave me scrambling to find a menu item that didn’t involve au jus.

I settled on Millennium, a veggie-only venue in the Hotel California, and shuffled my old man out the door before he could ask what kind of cuisine we were headed for. We’d already de-cabbed (traveling in style being one of the many perks of dining with Pop) in front of the restaurant when he finally weaseled it out of me.

“Vegetarian? Vegetarian!” he spluttered, looking genuinely shocked that I, his own flesh and blood, would so betray and deprive him of some other animal’s skin and bone. I almost felt bad as he plopped into his seat, not at all trying not to sulk.

The décor was the first thing to soothe his spirit: rich, heavy woodwork; black-and-white tiled floor á la French bistro, and an ornate, substantial zinc-topped bar may have reassured him that his meal, too, would be a satisfyingly substantial one. Even when I informed him that the restaurant’s interior had been recently redesigned with sustainability in mind (Charles de Lisle of Your Space Interiors chose curtains from recycled plastic bags, chandeliers that started life as paper grocery sacks, and earth-toned interior paints) he seemed at home in the cozy, cruelty-free faux leather booth – or at least sufficiently insulated from SF’s raging counter-culture, viz. a heavy tattooed specimen one table over.

Conscious, not crunchy – Millennium’s classic décor is father-approved. Photo by Alison Bagby

Our server Justin was polite, just the right amount of chatty, and swift to suggest an array of dishes that would please my flesh-craving father, who at this point was becoming sort of embarrassed by his insistence on animal, given that the restaurant’s staff seemed to be nice folk.

(“I don’t eat that much meat,” he squirmed. I reminded him that he grew up working in a meat-packing plant, the son of its branch manager. And that his eyes turn red when he goes too long without a steak.)

The first dish to come out was the housemade tortellini ($12.75) with black chanterelle and chestnut filling and an array of accoutrements that risked sounding prissy (“carrot butter, saffron-spring onion-white wine broth, braised sunchoke and spigarello kale”) but that actually rounded the plate out with a delightful and necessary balance of flavors and textures. From the dense, sweet cubes of sunchoke to the delicate crisp breadcrumbs topping the dish, each element melted lusciously into the whole, while somehow holding on to its own identity. Dad took one bite and then made haste to safely locate his portion of the dish to his plate: half, or actually, a fair bit more than half.

Next up was the black bean torte – Justin’s suggestion – stuffed with caramelized plantains ($10.75). In truth, I thought the bean filling was a bit pasty and bland, and that it didn’t do the plantains justice. But the pumpkin-habañero papazul more than supplied the needed kick, and the accompanying cashew “sour cream” was satisfyingly rich, tart, and abundant. Here, Dad broke out with a “this is totally vegetarian?” He scraped his fork across his already-clean plate and licked it. In other words, success.

From there, things just got better. We were surprised when oyster mushrooms ($11 in most circumstances) crusted with chickpea flour and thyme landed on our table, courtesy of the kitchen, simply because we commented that they sounded good. In truth, they were fantastic. Entrees included the seared sweet potato griddle cake ($23.25) with cauliflower, winter greens, and cilantro and lime chutney, which was crowned by an extravagant mound of sweet onion pakora. Resembling nothing so much as a bouffant-like mound of playafied burner-dreadlocks, the elaborate heap had my dad ready to rave. “This,” he said, waving his fork in the air. “This. This is… better than meat.” Whoa.

His awe and appetite carried us right through a Oaxacan green corn arepa ($24.75, billed as hearty fare to sate the meat-eaters among us), the chewiness and density of which was a slight disappointment to only me. Furthermore, it carried the now-expected array of plays on texture and contrasting tastes: poblano chiles, grapefruit, avocado and roasted butternut squash frolicked in complete harmony.

Three appetizers and two entrees later, and despite the generous portions, we were so charmed that we committed to a slice of chocolate almond midnight torte ($9.25). By the time it came out, my dad had been converted to a vociferous proponent of vegetarian cuisine and, eager to show his approval he said, “Great! I can’t wait to try this! I can’t believe they even make vegetarian dessert!”

Though I’m pretty sure my father hasn’t imbibed too many authentic mincemeat tarts or lard-and-suet pie crusts, I refrained from pointing out the slackmindedness of his statement. I just smiled into my vegetarian cappuccino, feeling wholly content and victorious.

So deeply entrenched was my father in the afterglow of a great gourmet experience that he didn’t even mind the mingled smells of urine and weed that wafted us along through the Tenderloin. “That was the only meal you could completely gorge on and still want to take a stroll afterwards,” he commented as we wandered, now cab-less, through the San Francisco streets.

Millennium

Sun-Thurs 5:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.; Fri-Sat 5:30 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.

580 Geary, SF

(415) 345-3900

www.millenniumrestaurant.com

Beer, Wine and Full Bar

AE/DC/MC/V

Quiet

Wheelchair accessible

Butch blooms

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

February 8, 2011

culture@sfbg.com

V-DAY So you want to buy a nice little floral arrangement for that hot JD Samson look-alike who works behind the butcher counter — or perhaps you’re having a hard time picking out a rose for the tall, dark flannel-clad bear you met on Fuzzy4Fuzzy.com. Does ze even like flowers? Hell, it can even be rough finding the right bloom for your beloved bio male. Anyone who has ever been romantically involved with a masculine-presenting honey bun knows that carnations, lingerie, and other frilly V-Day accoutrement just ain’t cuttin’ it. So what kind of bouquet can you give a butch? Something spiky? Flowers made from aged leather? Pieces of wood? We asked the city’s florists for their best bets for the rough and tumble.

CHURCH STREET FLOWERS

Stephanie Foster is one of three owners at Church Street Flowers, a shop that does made-to-order arrangements featuring locally grown botanicals. “We do bouquets for masculine people all the time,” she tells us. “Guys love getting flowers too.” Foster recommends “brighter colors, like orange, yellow, green, or white.” And less is more when you want to impress a tough type. “As opposed to something very feminine and garden-y, we’d do something simpler. Plus, in our shop you’ll probably find things other places don’t carry, like seed pods that hold a structural quality instead of a flowery quality.”

212 Church, SF. (415) 553-7762, www.churchstflowers.com

PAXTON GATE

We were sure that this Mission gem — SF’s O.G. go-to for fanciful taxidermy, flora, and low maintenance landscape design — would have the goods for area hombres, and it didn’t disappoint. Come V-Day, Paxton Gate will be selling special holiday arrangements fit for a butch, each complete with a shiny preserved beetle garnish. “We wanted the arrangements to be long-lasting, so we’ll incorporate some rugged South African plants like proteas, maybe succulents, and some dried components,” says floral designer Sean Quigley. The store will be bundling its buggy blooms in advance for lovers on the go. At $38 a bunch, they’ll be a little pricey — but think of what you’ll save on your butcher bill.

824 Valencia, SF. (415) 824-1872, www.paxtongate.com

THE FRENCH TULIP

“I’m from Eastern Europe,” says owner Andre Abramov in a phone interview. When asked what flowers he would recommend for a dude, Abramov immediately recommended orchids. “In Greek, ‘orchid’ translates to ‘testicle.’ That would be perfect for a man.” If you’re not sold on highlighting your valentine’s testicles (or lack thereof), Abramov also stands by roses, cala lilies, and anthurium lilies for the butch in your life. “They’re strong, colorful, and they make a very big statement.” Just like your lumberjack love.

3903 24th St., SF. (415) 647-8661, www.frenchtulip.com

THE FLOWER GIRL

Mieko Takahashi Obermuller has owned and operated this Inner Sunset neighborhood floral shop since 1978. She understands the butch bloom conundrum: “First of all, tropical flowers are very bold,” she says. “Birds of paradise would look nice with some interesting greens, and I love proteas.” Obermuller, who specializes in Eastern floral design, says arrangement is crucial. “You have to know how to put it together. One, two, or three orchids with some greens — it’s simple but it makes a statement. I can take feminine flowers like tiger lilies, blue irises, or curly willows but still design the arrangement for a masculine look.” It’s not quite studded leather, but it sounds like something that’d look great on that meat counter.

1127 Irving, SF. (415) 731-0230, www.flowergirlsf.com

Local tokens

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

February 8, 2011

V-DAY No need to go far for an anti-lame gift for the Feb. 14. C’mon hot child, live in the city — and snag your valentine a lil’ somethin’ from this list of SF-made gift ideas, sure to show your honey that you care about the local economy as well as that special something you guys have going on.

>> Rickshaw Bags’ precious Pipsqueak handlebar bag ($25) means an end to your valentine fumbling about in their messenger tote for Chapstick or a cell phone. Bike safety: so, so sexy.

Rickshaw Bags, 994 22nd St., SF; (877) 503-9542, www.rickshawbags.com

>> Your love’s got roots, but not without healthy soil. Get a pound of red wigglers ($20) for your favorite gardener from this vermi-composting stay-at-home-mom. Mama’s Worm Composting, available for pick-up in SF.

www.mamaswormcomposting.com

>> Blakely Bass, owner of RAG clothing gallery, makes Native American-inspired leather hair wraps ($15-20) with hides she buys at a SoMa tannery. Not only are the accessories uber local, but they’re beautiful and will be a hit with the long hairs who can’t be bothered with strands in their face.

RAG Residents’ Apparel Gallery, 541 Octavia, SF. (415) 621-7718, www.ragsf.com

>> Convinced your fates are intertwined? Have a batch of customized fortune cookies ($5 for a batch of 100) baked to reflect your bright future together, with a crunch. Same-day printing is available.

Golden Gate Fortune Cookies, 56 Ross, SF. (415) 781-3956

>> We get it: you wanna be original. But hey Juliet, sometimes the tested-and-true got to be that way for a reason, so spring for some chocolate. Sweeten ’em up with some Poco Dolce popcorn toffee squares ($16) — these ain’t your grandma’s box of brittle. Available in various SF grocery stores.

www.pocodolce.com

>> Your baby deserves a nice new ‘fit to step out in. We’re betting the sweet pleats dress ($110) from Noo Works — a chic company that sells its well-fitting, stylin’, yet casual clothes out of its Mission District storefront — will bring some spring to her strut.

Noo Works, 395 Valencia, SF. (415) 821-7623, www.nooworks.com

>> Blossom Organics Pure Pleasure Arousal Gel ($16) has amassed quite a following in the city — which shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, if you can’t make a lube to light up San Franciscans’ x’s and o’s, then we’re going about it all wrong.

Good Vibrations, Various SF locations. www.goodvibes.com

>> No sk8r boy (or boi) is gonna coast off from a love note accompanied by these Spitfire skateboard wheels ($24 for four) — a V-Day gift like these says “I’ll never bolt my ledges.”

DLX Skateboards, 1831 Market, SF. (415) 626-5588, www.dlxsf.com

>> Kitty-cats and doggies need love too! Jeffery’s Natural Pet Foods stocks great options for your four-legged friend — the foods come in raw varieties that go easy on their fuzzy tummies.

Jeffery’s Natural Pet Foods, 3809 18th St., SF. (415) 864-1414 and 1841 Powell, SF. (415) 402-0342, www.jefferysnaturalpetfood.com

>> Zine-and-crafteria Needles and Pens has all sorts of SF-made goodies that look swell wrapped up in red construction paper. Try Matt Furie and Sam Gaskin’s recently released zine Hot Topik ($5) for your boo-boo who is into stoner humor or vinyl heart earrings made from repurposed records ($20) for LP lovers.

Needles and Pens, 3253 16th St., SF. (415) 255-1534, www.needles-pens.com

>> But enough of the hearts and kitty-cats — when do we get to the dead bug gifts? Local jeweler Bug Under Glass makes a surprisingly sweet butterfly wing necklace that’ll give your little love bug ants in their pants — in a good way. Available at various SF stores.

www.bugunderglass.com

>> SF-made fetish wear: a real turn-on for City by the Bay pervs. Hook her with the heartbreaker pasties from Madame S — encourage her to give them a test drive and hey howdy! Happy Valentine’s Day to you!

Madame S, 385 Eighth St., SF. (415) 863-7734, www.madame-s.com

Ollie beats

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

February 1, 2011

caitlin@sfbg.com

MUSIC Tommy Guerrero likes to skate down Potrero Hill. He’s been doing it since he was a young pup street boarder — one of the first to go pro, in fact — cruising down those steep residential declines that, looking south from SoMa, resemble like nothing so much as that scene from Inception where the dream city folds on top of itself. Guerrero skates smoothly from one legendary SF career to another, a shape-shift neatly illustrated by the release party for his eighth solo album Lifeboats and Follies at Cafe Du Nord Saturday, Feb. 5.

Despite the requests for autographs that he still gets; the occasional cravings his beat-up body experiences for skating (“It’s so raw and the energy is so fucking gnarly. Once you’ve had a taste of it, there’s no turning back.”); and a job that most ex-skate rats would kill for — he’s the art director for Krooked, a subset of Potrero Hill skate company Deluxe — he’s really more into music these days. “I would love to have all that time to work in the studio. I want to retire [from skate design] in a year,” he says, half-jokingly — but still longingly.

Maybe it’s a grass-is-always-greener thing, but until now he’s done a good job of balancing his various passions. Even in the 1980s and ’90s when Guerrero was grinding out his signature moves on the driveways and suicide hills of the city, back when he was popularizing Public Enemy in Japan by skating to the group’s tracks during competitions, music was always playing a supporting role. He and brother Tony played in punk bands, including Free Beer (a name that made for alluring concert flyers).

Nowadays Guerrero makes layered instrumental music that’s appropriately enough a mix of many different elements: chill jazz with electronic crescendos, a little Latin percussion, maybe a horn solo easefully inserted. Guerrero has a DJ-like impulse to play with genres. “I just hear so much shit in my head, this is what comes out.” Apparently his albums cause havoc in the Amoeba cataloging system. “I’ve seen it in electronic, rock, alternative, even experimental or some shit,” he laughs, sitting cross-legged in a patio booth at Thee Parkside, black leather Vans (his own signature design) on his feet.

He’s in the middle of doing some promotional work for Lifeboats and Follies, but like the rest of his projects, you get the feeling that Guerrero would be doing the same thing even if he never got paid a dime. After failing to resolve differences with his old label, Quannum, Guerrero bought the entire stock of his last album, From the Soul to the Soul, back from the company. He’s mulling over what to do with it — maybe give CDs away at Saturday’s show?

Guerrero never gained the Thrasher notoriety he got from skating in his musical career. But he casually mentions that he is, as the saying goes, big in Japan. He performs there a lot and gets off on being able to take risks with in his live performances that wouldn’t go over well with American audiences looking to hear the same old thing. “They can love J-pop and, at the same time, they can love John Zorn,” he says of his Japanese fans. It makes sense that Guerrero would gravitate toward an audience looking for a more diverse experience, one that trusts that whatever he’s popping off with — on the skateboard or mixing board — is gonna turn heads.

TOMMY GUERRERO: LIFEBOATS AND FOLLIES RELEASE PARTY

Sat/5 9:30 p.m., $12

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com>

Music Listings

Andrew Lam

February 1, 2011

WEDNESDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Corruptors, Heroine, Vanishing Breed Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.

Generalissimo, Blind Shake, Guitar vs. Gravity Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Bobby Long Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $15.

*Motorhead, Clutch, Valient Thorr Warfield. 8pm, $38.

Professor Burns and the Lilac Field, Eric Maskol, Maya Dorn Milk. 8:30pm, $5.

Das Racist, Hottub, DJ Vin Soi Independent. 8pm, $15.

Sweet Chariot, Victory and Associates, Calls Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Tristen, Billy and Dolly, Corner Laughers Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Tunnel, Foolproof Four, Word Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Wood Brothers Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $17.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Michael Parsons Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $35.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes. Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

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

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

THURSDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Ólafur Arnalds Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $17.

Shawn Colvin Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $34.

Leather Feather, Heart Touch, Dr. Madd Vibe, Sistas in the Pit, Punk Funk Mob Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.sfindie.com. 9pm, $10. Part of SF Winter Music Festival.

Limousines, Aaron Axelsen, Miles the DJ Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $12. Presented by Popscene.

Little Creatures, Casy and Brian El Rio. 10pm, free.

Mangled Bohemians, Lickets, Shores Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Mercury Falls Kaleidoscope, 3109 24th St, SF; www.kaleidoscopefreespeechzone.com. 9pm, $8.

Midnight Snackers, Badugi, Late Night Drive Kimo’s. 9pm, $6.

Mofo Party Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16.

Nels Cline Singers with Yuka C. Honda, Paul Riola Independent. 8pm, $16.

Social Distortion, Aggrolites, Chuck Ragan Warfield. 9pm, $35.

Tennis, Lord Huron, Air Waves Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

That Ghost, Hymn for Her Amnesia. 9pm.

Toasters, Inciters Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dastardly Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $40.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Country Casanovas Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

Electric Feel Lookout, 2600 16th St, SF; www.fringesf.com. 9pm, $2. Indie music video dance party with subOctave, Blondie K, and guest DJ Lifeline.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, Prince Aries, Boogie Brown, Ammbush, plus food carts and community creativity.

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

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

JFK of MSTRKRFT, Nisus, Shane King Mighty. 9pm, $15.

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

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

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

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

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

FRIDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Seth Augustus Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

Les Aus, Huan Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

“Battle of the Bands: Finals” DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With Handshake, Thy Winter Shadow, Boondock Squad, and more.

Blisses B, Acadia Collective, Ben Keeler Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Ethan Bortnick and His Musical Time Machine Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $29-50-39.50.

Cat Power Fillmore. 9pm, $35.

Church Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $35.

Shawn Colvin Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $34.

Definite Articles, She Beards, Gems, Bryan McPherson Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $10.

Exrays, Tim Cohen’s Magick Trick, Fiveng, DJ Cyclist Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

“14th Annual One Night Stand” Slim’s. 8pm, $13. Local bands perform cover songs.

Frail, Rykarda Parasol, Slpwlkrs Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10-15.

Hi-Rhythm Hustlers, Slim Jenkins Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.oldtimey.net. 9pm, $10.

Claudette King Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Los Shimmy Shakers, Foolproof Four, Taxes, Yoma Band, Shit Outta Luck, Thief, Nervous Energy Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.sfindie.com. 8pm, $10. Part of SF Winter Music Festival.

Social Distortion, Lucero, Chuck Ragan Warfield. 9pm, $35.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Forro Brazuca, DJ Alfie1Bateria Elbo Room. 10pm, $10.

Valerie Orth and friends Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $45.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strangelove Cat Club. 10pm, $6. Six-year anniversary featuring goth and industrial with DJs Tomas Diablo, Joe Radio, Xander, and Orko.

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

SATURDAY 5

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Communist Kayte, Icekats and the Mengz Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Devil’s Brigade, Roger Miret and the Disasters Thee Parkside. 9pm, $12.

*400 Blows, Skinwalker, Longmont Potion Castle El Rio. 10pm, $8.

Tommy Guerrero Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Hurry Up Shotgun, X-Ray Press, Third Victim of Abigail Rutledge Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Lakeside Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25-35.

Led Zeppelin 2 Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

Rod Piazza and the MIghty Flyers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Pollux, Pine and Battery, Lite Brite, Gentlemen Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals Fillmore. 9pm, $20.

Roy G. Biv and the Mnemonic Devices, Semi Feral, Aaron Lee and the Love Vigilantes, Sorry Mom and Dad Kimo’s 9pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $45.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Brothers Comatose, Green String Farm Band Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Rodney Crowell Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $26.

I.R.B. Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

“Khaliji Night” Arab Cultural and Community Center, Two Plaza St., SF; www.arabculturalcenter.org. 7pm, $15. With singer-oud player Naser Musa and percussionist Faisal Zedan.

Mighty Mississippi Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

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

DANCE CLUBS

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

Everlasting Bass 330 Ritch. 10pm, $5-10. Bay Area Sistah Sound presents this party, with DJs Zita and Pam the Funkstress spinning hip-hop, soul, funk, reggae, dancehall, and club classics. Foundation Som., 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm.

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

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

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

Leisure Paradise Lounge. 10pm, $7. DJs Omar, Aaron, and Jet Set James spinning classic britpop, mod, 60s soul, and 90s indie.

New Wave City: New Romantic Night DNA Lounge. 9pm, $7-12. DJs Skip and Shindog spin dreamy 80s.

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

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Sixties soul with DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.

Sensualite 111 Minna. 8pm, $20. Sexy party with burlesque, cookies, and the authors of Cockfidence: The Extraordinary Lover’s Guide to Being the Man You Want to Be and Driving Women Wild.

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

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

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

Three Kinds of Stupid Dance Party Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $12. With Sugar and Gold, Yip Deceiver, and DJs BAS, Chris Baty, and Brother Grimm.

Twelves, White Mike, Nisus Mezzanine. 9pm, $16.

SUNDAY 6

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Fracas, Kicker!, Bite, FUKM, Sad Boy Sinister Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.sfindie.com. 6pm, $10. Part of SF Winter Music Festival.

Hymn for Her Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Plain White Ts, Parachute, Miggs Fillmore. 8pm, $22.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Jennifer Bryce and Josh Workman Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

Joe Warner Trio Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8pm, free.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 7pm, $40.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

John Meeks Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJs Sep, Vinnie Esparza, and J Boogie.

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

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

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

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

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

MONDAY 7

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Asada Messiah, Dimesland, Catacomb Creeps Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Atomic Tom, Maniac Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Guitar Shorty Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lavay Smith Swinget with Jules Broussard Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; (415) 982-6223. 7pm, free.

Randy Weston Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $30.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.

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

TUESDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Assateague, Wooly Moon Amnesia. 9pm.

Tina Dico Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $16.

Lazarus, Michael Beach, Colossal Yes Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Dominique Leone, Sit Kitty Sit, Tzigane Society Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Tony Lucca, Lauren Shera Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Sebadoh, Quasi Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

Guitar Shorty Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20. Lolita Sweet Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20. JAZZ/NEW MUSIC Nick Culp Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free. Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5. DANCE CLUBS Bombshell Betty and Her Burlesqueteers Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. Burlesque and live music with Fromagique. Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro. Extra Classic DJ Night Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 10pm. Dub, roots, rockers, and reggae from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house. Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

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

5 things you didn’t know about cable cars

Andrew Lam

February 1, 2011

Get it out of the way now: roll those eyes. The cable cars are something no native San Franciscan would ever bring up in polite (that is, local) company, let alone write about in a blog post. But fact is, there’s a reason why these things are iconic. Those cars have as speckled and quirky a history as the City by the Bay.

San Franciscans steeped in facts and figures about the tourist-movers probably know that ours is the last operating cable car system in the world and that its design hasn’t changed much since Andrew Hallidie devised it upon seeing an overloaded horse-car slip down a hill in the rain. Perhaps you’ve heard that the four remaining lines each rely on a continuous loop of cable running under your feet at a constant 9.5 miles per hour, powered by electrical motors and a system of pulleys and huge wheels. If you’ve ever visited the Cable Car Museum (c’mon folks, it’s free) you’ve seen the sheaves pulling the cable along, and you’ve learned that the cars operate by grabbing the cable with giant pliers that reach through the floor and into a slot in the street where the cable runs.

Bored yet? Stifle that yawn, we’re just getting started. Read on for five things you haven’t heard about those postcard pretties.

I know why the caged bird . . . rings?

The famous author, poet, and social activist Maya Angelou dropped out of Mission High School at 15 to work the cable cars. “The thought of sailing up and down the hills of San Francisco in a dark-blue uniform, with a money changer at my belt, caught my fancy,” she later recalled in 1969’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Angelou won the job as San Francisco’s first African American (and female) cable car conductor by heckling reluctant company managers until they caved and she was hired to ring the cars’ bells and swing “on the back of the rackety trolley, smiling sweetly and persuading [her] charges to ‘step forward in the car, please.’”

Smokin’ tracks

Ever noticed a certain funk riding in a cable car? It wasn’t the guy next to you. It’s caused by two materials that play a critical role in starting and stopping the car: the pine resin that greases the cable and the wooden brake shoes, made from Douglas fir, that press against the tracks to stop the car. Friction causes the wooden brakes to smoke, meaning they must be replaced every three days with new ones milled locally at a shop on 22nd Street and Indiana. Friction from the pliers-like grip grabbing the cable likewise melts and then vaporizes the pine tar. This results in a smooth, lubricated start-up, but is also responsible for the burning and odor. (And if that sounds a bit too familiar, perhaps you should call your doctor…) Like the wooden brakes, the grip that grabs the cable must be replaced every three days for wear.

The cable car: the Imelda Marcos of public transportation. (Stack of brake shoes at the Cable Car Museum). Photo by Emily Appelbaum

Move over, men

Working as a grip operator requires incredible dexterity and also the nuanced ability to feel the cable, picking it up slowly to ease the car to full speed. Though well over half of trainees drop from the teaching program each year, the required combination of subtlety and strength make gripping the perfect job for powerful women like Fannie Mae Barnes, who became the city’s first female grip in 1997.

“A lot of guys will try to muscle the grip, but it’s really more a finesse thing – you have to leverage it with your body weight,” Barnes told the Guardian in an interview last fall. Barnes retired in 2007, but when San Francisco’s second female grip, Willa Johnson, took the post last April, Barnes presented her with a pair of custom-made pink leather grip gloves, emblazoned with her name.

Beyond the bells

The Slot Blades, named for the cars’ emergency braking system, is a band composed entirely of SF Muni workers who conduct and grip the city’s cable cars. Their moniker is a tongue of metal that, when deployed, wedges itself so tightly against the tracks it must be removed with a torch. The cable-proud band gets together for practices and jam sessions in addition to playing at Muni and cable car-related events like the annual Cable Car Bell Ringing Contest – now in its 49th year.

Falling cars and free love

Forget stranded cables and smashed cars: San Francisco’s most infamous cable car victim may be Gloria Sykes, who claimed that a 1964 accident left her with a black eye, bruises, and an unquenchable sex drive.

When a mechanical failure caused the car she was riding to slide backwards down a hill, Sykes – later dubbed the “cable car nymphomaniac” by the daily newspapers — sued the City of San Francisco for a half million dollars. Her lawyers argued that the sexual abuse she suffered as a child combined with the stress of the accident caused her to seek the company of up to 50 sexual partners a week. After listening to 44 taped transcripts of an electrically hypnotized Sykes, the jury awarded the insatiable (ha) plaintiff $50,000 in damages. Sykes’ case is cited as one of the earliest court-recognized examples of post-traumatic stress disorder.

San Francisco Cable Car Wheelhouse from Emily Appelbaum on Vimeo.

Check out the inner wheelings and dealings of the SF Cable Car Museum. Here, the whirling electric motors that power the cars. Video by Emily Appelbaum

Hot sexy events January 26 – February 1

Andrew Lam

January 26, 2011

Glory be OneTaste. This SF-based company is devoted to the singular pursuit of female pleasure, offering lessons in their “slow sex” technique, detailed re-programming of one’s touch-stroke-lick that all but guarantees that at-times elusive female orgasm. Believe it. Fitness-business guru-crazy Tim Ferriss describes a class with OneTaste in his new book The 4-Hour Body as being highly informative and bewilderingly hands-on. He also likens the female genitalia to an Imperial Guard from Star Wars, but that is besides the point (kind of). At any rate, OneTaste is conducting a one-off course at the Polk Street Good Vibrations this week on discovering your deepest desires (Mon/31), making it but one of the can’t-miss sex events on offer out there in pervertlandia. Enjoy, kids!

Bare Chest Calendar semi-finals

For 28 years, iron-chested menfolk have bravely paraded their bulging pectorals about for a good cause – the Bare Chest Calendar, which raises money for the AIDS Emergency Fund and Positive Resources Center. You can nobly help in the effort, just attend the semi-final and final rounds of the contest that will determine next year’s calendar boys and cheer your ass off. By the looks of the contenders, that shouldn’t be too difficult.

Thurs/27 9:30 p.m.,

Powerhouse

1347 Folsom, SF

www.barechest.org

Transgender HIV/STI testing

Sure, it happens every week, but that’s no reason not to give St. James’ Infirmary a shout-out over their excellent, sensitive testing and trans-hormone-knowledgeable services that are available each Thursday afternoon. With all the scary cuts in the area as of late (see event Sun/30), it’s good to know that there are still safe, friendly places to go to stay healthy, happy, and sexy.

Thurs/27 1 – 4 p.m., free

St. James’ Infirmary

1372 Mission, SF

(415) 554-9634

www.stjamesinfirmary.org

email sjimedical@yahoo.com for appointment

Boots

Chaps is putting the call out for boot pigs, so oink oink Wilbur – grease up your city Stompers and cruise to Folsom Street. There’s nothing sexier for a leatherman than the threat of getting crushed under the stampede of hairy-chested hotties that will be thrusting out their steel toes for a buff by bootblack Miss V. The Stompers gang hosts and who’s that behind the bar? The sexy David, that’s who.

Sat/29 9 p.m. – 2 a.m., free

Chaps

1225 Folsom, SF

(415) 255-2427

Facebook: Hotties for H0m0 Health Care

Hotties 4 H0m0 Health Care: A Fundraiser for Lyon-Martin Health Services

Not cool. There’s not enough clinics in this city-state-universe that cater to queer women and transgendered folk, and one of the finest, Lyon-Martin Health Services, is facing closure due to serious financial problems. How much do they need to keep their doors open? Try $250,000 – which sounds like a lot, but given all the hullabaloo the community is raising to keep the place afloat, it’s totally doable. Here’s one way to support the clinic: shaking your ass to DJ Bootie Klap and wriggling in time to performances by burlesque star Dottie Lux and friends. (Here’s some other ways, too!)

Sun/30 7-10 p.m., $5-20 sliding scale

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

(415) 282-3325

Eclipse

Hey ladies, Ms. Cat (leather community stalwart and 2010 Ms. Leather runner-up) is celebrating her birthday and she needs you to reel back that hand and give her a good day-of-birth spanking. The Citadel’s female-only BDSM party, Eclipse, is back in action, which means you should pack up your toys, friends, or just come solo and open to this dungeon time-party time.

Sat/29 8 p.m. – 1 a.m., $25 members only

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

The Depths of Desire

Secret longings are all well and good, as long as the longers themselves know what they are. Local sex education group OneTaste (famed for the dissection of the female orgasm) breaks down what one can do to get at one’s deepest longings and sassiest salaciousness.

Mon/31 6 – 8 p.m., $20-25

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

Community rallies to save Lyon-Martin

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

January 26, 2011

Whoa, the effort to save the Lyon-Martin Health Services clinic is going gangbusters.

Here’s the link to a Facebook page devoted to the cause.

Seemingly overnight, community members have cooked up a number of fundraisers, starting tonight (Wed./26), to scrape together enough dough to keep the clinic up and running. Lyon-Martin has been providing free and low-cost health care to low-income and uninsured people for more than three decades. It’s a particularly important resource for the LGBT community, with specific emphasis on queer and transgender health care.

The voice mail for Lyon-Martin Board President Lauren Winter is full at the moment, but here’s a note from the clinic’s website: “Lyon-Martin needs to raise at least $250,000 to reduce immediate debts and be able to continue providing invaluable healthcare to its patients. Should that happen, Lyon- Martin may be able to reorganize rather than close.”

San Francisco is rallying for the cause, and there’s still a chance that Lyon-Martin can be saved.

Below are some events we found on Facebook. And remember, you can always donate online.

*Stay Gold ♥ ♥ ♥

Wednesday, Jan. 26
The Makeout Room
22nd and Mission, SF
10:30 pm
$3 GAY DOLLARS
DJ’S: 510’s Finest!!!
Pink Lightning
Rapid Fire
“Stay Gold is accepting donations for Lyon-Martin tonight! Dance your hearts out and help us keep our doors open!”

*Be the Person Who Helps Save Lyon-Martin Health Services!
Saturday, Jan. 29
Meet at 1pm at 17th and Market, SF, and split up to hand out flyers and ask for donations.
1-4 pm
“Dress to impress – catch the eyes of our richer cousins in the Castro, Noe, Bernal and Pac heights in medical (fetish) outfits, glitter bikinis and stethoscopes, whatever will show the most excellent you and ask them to donate. For those in the LGBT community who don’t access public health care – they must understand that the healthcare of the poorest folks in the community affects everyone within it.”

*Hotties 4 Homo Health Care
Sunday, Jan. 30
El Rio
3158 Mission at Precita, SF
7-10 pm
$5-20 sliding scale!

“LYON-MARTIN NEEDS YOUR HELP TO KEEP THE CLINIC OPEN. The clinic WILL CLOSE if we can’t raise over $250,000 to cover immediate debt.”

*Heart: A Loving Community Fundraiser for Lyon-Martin Health Services
Sunday, Feb. 13
2509 Bryant, SF
6-9 pm

“This Lyon-Martin fundraising reception will be held at a Mission artist’s cooperative and will highlight the local businesses and organizations that sustain our communities. The evening will include delicious appetizers catered by Queer Food for Love, a volunteer non-profit that creates organic, vegan meals for the queer community. “Mildred’s Bridge Group,” a queer women quartet, will provide music for the evening, and art by the cooperative’s artists-in-residence will decorate the space. Dynamo Donuts will be providing dessert!

Raffle prizes include a $225 tattoo gift certificate by Micah Riot of Black and Blue Tattoo, $50 to local leather artisans Project TransAction, a piece of original art by local artist Danyol, $100 to Bourbon and Branch, $50 to Flax Art Supplies, and much more!

General Admission tickets are $25, tickets for low-income attendees are $15, and VIP tickets are $50 and include 5 free raffle tickets and a Lyon-Martin t-shirt. Tickets are available here.”

Mission Chinese Food at Lung Shan

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

January 25, 2011

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE As a rule, I am wary of restaurants where you order items by the number — especially when the numbers run into the hundreds. You start to think it’s like an automotive plant back there in the kitchen, where they’re slapping on option groups (fog lamps, alloy wheels, a leather-wrapped steering wheel) according to some big book of codes. Of course restaurant kitchens are like factories — are factories — we all know this, but there is such a thing as too much choice and too much process, even in America. I’m not sure anyone truly needs, or even wants, DishTV’s 500-plus channels, or a restaurant menu that has to be printed on several folios, like a poetry chapbook.

Chinese restaurants are notable, in my experience, for being more likely than other kinds of restaurants to offer a far greater number of dishes than any restaurant kitchen could be expected to cook with attentive passion, but a notable exception is Mission Chinese Food at Lung Shan. On any given night — even a cold weeknight — you might think you’ve stumbled on a crowd of people waiting to audition for “Brooklyn: The Musical.” Every hipster for miles around seems to be wedged into the dining room waiting for a table. It is a veritable hipsterama, and I mean this in the best possible way.

Hipsters have a certain reputation for shunning math — or is that meth? — and (perhaps because of being raised in a culture of shopping-mall vapidity) show a craving for any validating experience that can be described with the adjective “street.” So maybe their massive presence here is a response to the street-food menu, which numbers just a few dozen items. Or maybe they just know good food, at a good price, when they find it. There is plenty of agreeably mediocre Chinese food to be had in San Francisco, but not at MCF. The cooking here is clever and forceful, and it’s also gently incendiary. This is the kind of food that makes your nose run. You can also get Chinese beer for $3 a bottle; as Bart Simpson once put it after agreeing to let the vet spay Homer and give him a flea bath for $20, “shop around, you can’t beat that price!”

Even the cold items carry a chili charge. Tiger salad, for instance ($7) — an irresistible name; who could resist having it? — consisted of four squat pillars of herbed lettuces, red perilla (a kind of shiso leaf), and roasted seaweed in a puddle of chili oil, as if the plate’s previous tenant had been some greasy chorizo. But even with all the exhilarating heat, even cold heat, you soon understand that this is Chinese-influenced cooking, not Chinese cooking.

Salt cod fried rice ($10), for example, sounds like something the Vikings might have cooked up ago while sailing across the north Atlantic. Despite the fancy emendations, including confit of escolar, the dish seemed very much like other fried rice dishes you’d find around town, with little rounds of Chinese sausage, like a sliced-up red pencil, lending a defining presence, along with scallion for color contrast.

The menu’s signature dish could well be the sizzling cumin lamb ($12.50), served on a sizzling iron platter that keeps gently cooking the onion slivers and slices of jalapeño pepper as you pluck out chunks of the highly scented lamb. The meat is from the belly and is therefore quite fatty; it takes the form of jointed spindles whose two arms are glued together by the melted fat. It is rich, intensely perfumed, spicy-hot, and (for an auditory thrill) actually sizzling. We could not ask more from any meat dish.

Still, after working your way through a plate of such weighty food, a bit of relaxation would be in order — a bath, say, in a broad bowl of broth filled with pork dumplings ($10). The steam itself was — a kind of pork aromatherapy — and there was a strong temptation to put towels over our heads and hold our faces in the steam flow.

Lung Shan’s street face is about as prosaic as it gets. It doesn’t look to have been freshened for decades and gives no hint of the crowd that gathers there when the sun goes down. But thrill-seekers know that there’s no thrill quite so thrilling as the unadvertised one.

MISSION CHINESE FOOD AT LUNG SHAN

Thurs.–Tues., 11:30 a.m.–10:30 p.m.

2234 Mission, SF

(415) 863-2800

www.missionchinesefood.com

Beer and wine

AE/DS/MC/V

Loud

Wheelchair accessible

Burn the Bay

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

January 25, 2011

Self-medicate and simmer? Hardly. A nice big toke deserves (another and) a trip out and about to see some of the Bay Area’s finest sites to be stoned in. Just don’t flash that bong around — we hear that shit’s still illegal (?). Here are the Guardian staff picks for places around town that your buzz will love.

GOOD MANG KOK BAKERY

Post-Mary munchies are no joking matter. Yeah, you laugh when your buddy eats sausages dipped in maple syrup, but when it’s your turn the joke’s on you. Fortunately, Good Mang Kok Bakery in Chinatown is there to get you through those funky hunger spells. It’s got it all: pork buns, shrimp dumplings, egg tarts, mochi, sesame balls, chow mein — more grease and sugar than you can shake a spliff at. The joint (ha!) smells like stoner heaven, but the best part about Good Mang Kok is that it won’t leave a dent in your wallet — three steamed pork buns cost only $1.50 and all the food a stoner can eat won’t ever cost more than a 10 spot. Peep the window sign that says “Dim Sum Nice Food” and you’ll know you’re at the right place.

1039 Stockton, SF. (415) 397-2688

KADAMPA BUDDHIST TEMPLE’S “MEDITATIONS ON WORLD PEACE”

It’s Sunday morning, you’re stoned, and your heart is full of love. Kumbaya friend, mosey down to the Mission’s Kadampa Buddhist Temple for its weekly group meditation on world peace — because we all know that war, violence, and suffering are huge mellow-harshers. Inside the small building you’ll find a meeting room lined with chairs, Buddhist art, and sculpture — take a seat and be on time. Class includes a guided prayer, a spiritual teaching (try not to space, because if you pay attention here you can learn a lot), and refreshments. Every level of experience is welcome and no stoner will be turned away for lack of funds.

Sundays, 10:30 a.m.–noon, $10 donation suggested. 3324 17th St., SF. (415) 503-1187, www.meditationinnortherncalifornia.org

REVOLUTION CAFE

We regard the Revolution Cafe as its own mythic country, one in which bearded men and dashing women from various cosmopolitan European, Latin-American, and African cities epically lounge, smoke from their spliffs still lingering in their leather jackets and hand-woven mountain sweaters. In this convivial company, there is no better vantage point to regard the Mission’s ragtag parade from behind the fog of (medicinal, surely) Humboldt fog, particularly with a glass of house red or cappuccino in hand. Languid inter-table conversation is a mandate on the Revolution porch — retreat inside to giggle at The Awl’s witticisms on your laptop or take in the piano-guitar duo occupying Rev’s tiny corner that is allotted to its live music offerings.

3248 22nd St., SF. (415) 642-0474

ZEUM

Who says you have to be a kid to get a kick out of this museum’s interactive art and technology exhibits? Twist one up and try your hand at photo manipulation, animation, and video-mixing geared toward the mini-mind. And while we’re feeding our heads here, why not go truly techno-psychedelic with the kids’ museum’s Z Dance — dance in front of a green screen and a computer will transfer your image to a trippy backdrop (see Jefferson Airplane’s Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour performance of “White Rabbit” for inspiration). For gizmo gear-heads to blasé Betties, some advice for truly groking the beauty of Zeum: nothing will awaken your childlike wonder like a little William’s Wonder.

221 Fourth St., SF. (415) 820-3320, www.zeum.org

SEWARD STREET SLIDES

In 1966, Seward Street minipark was the site of a neighborhood sit-in that saved the last remaining open space between Seward and Corwin streets from encroaching development. Honor the community protesters’ struggle in true ’60s spirit by lighting up, grabbing a cardboard box, and flying down the polished concrete flumes for freedom (you can also slide at the chutes in Children’s Playground and Bernal Heights). Getting blazed is a good way to mitigate small bruises and the burn of climbing to the top of the remarkably long chute. But if intoxication and high velocity isn’t your favorite mix, there are plenty of places to perch peacefully and watch the action.

Acme between Seward and Corwin, SF

BERKELEY BOWL

This locally-owned grocery chain is a stoner’s dream, whether you alight on the 40,000 square foot megastore or the sleek new western location complete with parking lot: an added convenience for pre-browse hot-boxing. From asparagus to zatar (a Lebanese spice related to mint), the Technicolor aisles tantalize tokers’ taste buds, and are the ideal playscape for customer antics — shopping cart drag races are not unheard of. Feeling peckish? Avoid being “that hippy” shoving patchouli-scented paws in the bulk bins. Try baking among the baked goods at the store café, where you’ll find plenty of fresh soups, sandwiches, and company to ponder universal truths with.

2020 Oregon, Berk. (510) 843-6929; 920 Heinz, Berk. (510) 898-9555, www.berkeleybowl.com

WESTFIELD MALL ESCALATORS

Try to accomplish anything at the Westfield Mall while sober and you will surely end up crying outside of Jamba Juice, then struggling for hours more just to find the first floor exit. A better way of approaching the shiny downtown consumerist behemoth is to get faded and ride the escalators for, like, a really long time. The inter-floor specimens at the Westfield are a sight to behold. Unlike boring linear escalators, these zigzag upward and downward in Escher-esque profundity, caged in the mall’s dome-like interior. Those seeking ascent or descent must navigate a loop of shiny retail spaces just to find their way to the next moving staircase. Keep your wits about you — if you know which way is up, you may just reach Century Theatres!

865 Market, SF. (415) 512-6776, www.westfield.com/sanfrancisco

AUDIUM

Seeing the sights while stoned is all well and good, but you can give your optic nerves the night off and still totally trip off of SF. The wonder that makes it all possible is the Audium, where synapse-stimulating sound sculptures are unleashed on listeners seated in a round auditorium that is darkened to blackness to further heighten the experience. This place was constructed to get you high off auditory fumes. Sayeth Stan Shaff, the composer who co-masterminded the Audium concept back in the 1950s: “As people walk into a work, they become part of its realization. From entrance to exit, Audium is a sound-space continuum.” Somehow we’ve made it through this entire paragraph without using the term “mind-blowing.” Shoulder pat.

Performances Fridays and Saturdays, 8:30 p.m. 1616 Bush, SF. (415) 771-1616, www.audium.org

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA COAST GALLERY AT THE STEINHART AQUARIUM

Look, for those riding the green hornet, buzziness doesn’t get much better done than at the California Academy of Sciences. The Morrison Planetarium sends not just cosmic gas and glistening stars whirling around your dome, but protozoan tendrils and glimmering ambient sounds as well, as part of the current “Life” show. Iridescent butterflies flit unfettered about the Buckyball-like “Rainforests of the World” structure. And of course there’s Claude the preening albino alligator and a clownish troupe of cavorting penguins. But for sheer shivery loveliness, we like to slip into the basement for the Steinhart Aquarium’s gorgeously curated exhibits of regional undersea habitats. The Philippine Coral Reef wastes our retinas with its neon delights and the generalist Water Planet Galleries include infinite otherworldly species. But it’s the Northern California Coast Gallery that keeps us rooted in a meditative pose with its hypnotically undulating anemones and sensuously intertwined towers of opalescent kelp. Think about it. That’s, like, right off Ocean Beach, dude. Your pipe is your snorkel.

55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, www.calacademy.org

List assembled by Emily Appelbaum, Marke B., Caitlin Donohue, and Hannah Tepper.

Hot sexy events January 19-25

Andrew Lam

January 19, 2011

We’re normally asses up here at the weekly sex events column, but for the purpose of January 19-26, we’re asking you to lift another body part altogether: your pinky. That’s because tonight (Weds/19) you’ll get the chance to learn about an entirely refined BDSM social function, that being the tea party. Ms. Margaret, who used to coordinate educational services for the smOdyssey website as well as the Folsom Fringe conference, runs the classy “Tea With a Twist” affair with long-time slave Erich. Rumor has it she never takes her tea the same way twice, for which you will learn the reason at this lace tablecloth-leather dress how-to affair.

Tea With a Twist

Why must all BDSM parties take place in a dungeon? What of the mistress that requires some amount of refinement and grace – not to mention finger food? These classy souls are invited to this primer on dom-sub tea time, sculpted by Ms. Margaret’s “velvet glove over steel hand” mentality.

Weds/19 8 – 10 p.m., $15

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org

Pits

Raise your hand if you’re an armpit man. (See how that works?) Chaps has got the jock-tastic bash for you this week. Pits is part of their fetish night series, so no longer will you be wondering if that hottie with the body holding the Jager bomb will mind if you want to grab him by the under-bicep. He’s here too, ya know – just be prepared to give as you get, gentlemen.

Weds/19

Chaps

1225 Folsom, SF

(415) 255-2427

Radical Love Workshop

At some point in our lives, we’ve all wished we had this line on our resume: “revolutionary activist of the heart.” Sure you deserve it, sweets – but Wendy-O-Matic can say it with a straight face. Ms. O-Matic has spent years standing strong and educating on behalf of the polyamorous community, and now she’s presenting this workshop at Mission Control on the ins-and-outs of loving whoever you damn well please, and sharing them with whomsoever you see fit — with a basis on love and intimacy, not picking the right music for the orgy.

Thurs/20 7-9 p.m., $25 members only

Mission Control

2519 Mission, SF

Community Porn Forum

Skin flick performers get together to discuss the upcoming Cal OSHA meeting (the next is Feb/8) regarding occupational safety measures in the industry. The perfect chance, you XXXers, to learn about how you can tell the regulating body what you need to feel safe on the job – particularly regarding condom usage, a hot topic at recent meetings on the subject. MSM (male on male) performers especially encouraged to attend.

Fri/21 3 – 5 p.m., free

St. James’ Infirmary

1372 Mission, SF

(415) 554-8494

www.stjamesinfirmary.org

10th Annual Butch-Femme Holiday Party

Get all festive and feisty at this sexy winter ball. Of course, this being an all-lesbo affair, all manners of dress are welcome for the dancing and drinking – festive wear would be appropriate, but so too would be whatever ‘fits you wanna rock for the evening. Event organizers would be thrilled to death if volunteers want to bring finger food, refreshments, ice, or wood for the outdoor fire. Outdoor fire? Now we’re talking.

Sat/22 6 p.m. – midnight

Humanist Hall

411 28th St., Oakl.

www.erobay.com

email: butchfemmesocials@yahoogroups.com

Lip Service

Smack, suck, caress – and that’s just before the tongue gets activated. Kissing is one of those arts that can get passed over in pursuit of the all-powerful O, but it’s one of the most important (and public spaces friendly) weapon in your arsenal of sexual equanimity. Let sex educator Tracy Bartlett show you the ropes course to a good make-out sesh – grab your partner and get to mashin’.

Mon/24 6 – 8 p.m., $40-45/pair

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0400

Bend over the rainbow

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

January 11, 2011

marke@sfbg.com

SEX/TV “We get to shoot all over San Francisco,” Jack Shamama of NakedSword.com tells me over the phone, a wicked lilt tiptoeing into his voice. “How great is that?”

Double entendres! He’s referring to Golden Gate, the spunky episodic porn Web series he wrote with Michael Stabile, which just wrapped up its first season and will begin a second season in February. The weekly series runs on the Naked Sword site, with a new episode debuting every week to a substantial viewership that values glossy production and polished presentation.

Although there’s no grand soap opera-like family tree of intersecting characters and storylines, each episode does feature quite a bit of plot, at least by wank-flick standards, and solid back stories for the various players. (Sample: “Robert is an unemployed writer who spends his days at cafes. He’s got a real interest in humanity, and is garrulous and friendly. He’s almost always dressed casually. Robert lives in the grittier Castro-adjacent neighborhood of the Lower Haight.” Robert gets crammed full of a two-foot-long cone-shaped black dildo. But I digress.)

GOLDEN GATE TRAILER (er, NSFW)

Pornisodic series have been done before — the sprawling Wet Palms comes to mind — but this is the first that really focuses on San Francisco. Shamama and Stabile being our perennial enfants terribles of porn, there’s some fun with San Francisco archetypes in each episode as well, bringing together, say, a high-powered downtown investor with a struggling Mission District artist who pimps himself out online for rent money. And while there are a few problems with verisimilitude (that struggling artist has waxed eyebrows and an all-over tan), there are plenty of spot-on in-jokes. In one episode, a couple of almost-hipster rockers get approached by a groupie for sex — but first they hand him a flyer for their band’s show at Bottom of the Hill.

After we dished a bit about the scheduling woes of porn stars in the Internet Age and the purported whereabouts of 1990s bear porn pioneer Steve “Titpig” Hurley, I asked Shamama a few questions about Golden Gate.

SFBG What pricked you into Golden Gate action?

Jack Shamama In the past, Naked Sword has teamed up with partners to produce hardcore content, behind-the-scenes specials, porn event coverage, and our regular talk show, “The Tim and Roma Show.” But for our first completely in-house production, we knew we had to come up with something big that wouldn’t run out of steam, since we wanted it to be a weekly series. The concept that kept coming up was the city itself.

Gay porn was pretty much invented in San Francisco and even today maybe as much as 75 percent of it is still filmed here, but you really wouldn’t know it since most of it’s filmed on sets. Those movies that do spotlight San Francisco generally end up giving people a dumbed-down CliffsNotes “gay Disneyland” version of SF, with an opening shot of the Golden Gate Bridge and credits rolling over a shot of the giant rainbow flag in the Castro.

We figured we owed San Francisco a bit more than that. Our tagline is “Enter the land of impulse and desire.” The city ends up being sort of like the main character. For each episode, we bring together two opposing types of San Francisco men to show the different sides of the city.

SFBG Everyone talks about how major porn studios are being killed by amateur websites. But you guys are going in the opposite direction, with glossy production values, old-fashioned plot-oriented scenes, big name stars, and timed release dates …

JS Golden Gate is definitely an anomaly in the porn marketplace — but I think that at this point, its uniqueness is a plus. There’s still a huge audience out there that wants this type of meticulously produced, quality product, and I don’t think they should be ignored just because there are other types of porn being made.

Many people automatically equate “amateur” with “plotless” — but really it’s the same plot over and over again. “Straight guy sucks his first dick” could describe seven-eighths of amateur porn. That can be hot but yeah, we get it. We want to explore other kinds of fantasy. And, along with our executive producer Tim Valenti, we want to do it in a quality way. Even though our actors get down and dirty, we’re not ashamed of having a little class.

SFBG How difficult is it to produce a weekly porn series?

JS It can get tough to write episodes at that pace and to keep everything straight — scouting locations, shooting stills, scheduling stars. One challenging aspect to production I didn’t anticipate was finding filming locations. Since each episode takes places in a different neighborhood, it’s taking us out of our comfort zone. There are lots of guys who live in the Castro who want to have a gay porn shot in their apartment, but some other neighborhoods can be tricky. We’ve lucked out and been able to shoot in some amazing apartments so far, though. I really didn’t expect it to become real estate porn, but I don’t think anyone’s complaining.

Another thing is making sure our script is malleable enough to adapt to the actors and direction. We shoot the sex part before the scripted part, so the actors won’t get too bored. And even though in our scripts Mike and I try to go beyond just clichéd “fuck me harders” during the sex parts, when it comes down to it, we want our actors to have hot sex, not worry about delivering their lines. And we want our director, Chris Ward, to be free to match his sexual vision to our scripted intentions. He’s one of the biggest names in porn — no one tells Chris Ward how to film a sex scene. He’s incredible.

SFBG Any hot scenarios you can share from the upcoming season?

JS A pair of Mormon missionaries don’t quite know what they’re getting into when they knock on the door of a certain fetishy Alamo Square leather daddy. That one ought to be fun.

Appetite: Best Restaurant Openings of 2010, Bay Area

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

January 10, 2011

Appetite: Best Restaurant Openings of 2010, Bay Area

Earlier in the week, I listed the top 10 new restaurant openings of the year in San Francisco. Now I list an additional four best new Bay Area openings: one in the South Bay, two in the East Bay, one in Wine Country. In the midst of Oakland’s continued proliferation as a dining hotspot and the new downtown Napa reign of celebrity chefs from Tyler Florence to Morimoto, here are a few that rose above, in alphabetical order.

BAUME, Palo Alto
In the realm of all-senses-engaged gastronomy temples like Chicago’s Alinea or the whimsical decadence of Jose Andres’ The Bazaar in LA, San Francisco is shockingly lacking. We have the talent and creativity here of the best food cities in the world. But it seems at times there can be a fear of getting too experimental. Thankfully, in 2010 Chef Bruno Chemel (formerly of Chez TJ) opened Baume in a non-descript, ’70’s-looking Palo Alto building. Yes, it’s crazy expensive (tasting menus), special occasion dining, but it stands out with well-orchestrated service and a simple but striking dining room of elegant orange and warm browns. You are teased with ingredients, like liquid nitrogen, curry, leek, seaweed, endive, then await the presentation like a gift. The best part is that Baume is not merely molecular showmanship… dishes are rich with flavor and heart. Don’t miss Chef Bruno’s 62-degree sous-vide egg. I had it with wild mushroom and Noilly Prat dry vermouth foam paired with shots of fresh celery and lime juice punctuated by roasted rosemary stalks. Currently, he’s serving the egg with lichee, lilikoi, espresso, chocolate. I’m intrigued.

GATHER, Berkeley
A December 2009 opening, Gather is the best thing to come along in Berkeley in ages. It reads typical Bay Area at first glance: local, sustainable, organic everything, from meats and veggies to spirits, wine and beer. The rounded corner room, with bustling, open space in full view of the kitchen is holistically casual and urban. And, yes, everything you have heard about the raved-about vegan “charcuterie” is true. Decidedly non-vegetarian, I marvel at this artwork array of vegetables on a wood slab, five delicately-prepared (and delicious) combinations for $16. You might have roasted baby beets with shaved fennel, dill, blood orange, horseradish almond puree and pistachio as one item, then King Trumpet mushroom crudo with parsnip-pine nut sea palm risotto as another. Exec Chef Sean Baker and team do meat right, too. Whether sausage pizza with pork belly and chiles, or house-cured ham topped with crescenza cheeze and cardoon-walnut salsa, carnivores will leave happy. Gather displays an ethos and presentation one can only dream of being a standard everywhere.

PLUM, Oakland
Easily the best new opening in Oakland in 2010, Daniel Patterson’s long-anticipated Plum delivers his impeccable technique in heartwarming food. Despite communal seating on uncomfortable wood stools, one is warmed by skillfully prepared food under $20. Chef Charlie Parker recently took the reigns, serving impeccably nuanced soups like ham hock and brussels sprouts or turnip apple soup with miso. Deviled eggs benefit from caperberry tarragon relish, while a rich beef cheek and oxtail burger welcomes the contrast of accompanying Autumn pickles. Patterson’s power continues to be used for gourmet good, and this time Oakland is the recipient.

FARMSTEAD, St. Helena
Farmstead may not be the most exciting restaurant to open in Wine Country in 2010 but I find it among the most satisfying. Part of Long Meadow Ranch, a welcome package of winery, poultry farm, herb garden, grass-fed beef ranch, and olive press, it’s in a modern, converted barn with fireplace, tractors and chairs on the outdoor patio. Inside it’s funky light fixtures, cavernous ceilings and leather booths. Their grass-fed beef is, in a word, exemplary. It makes for a decent steak, but my money goes towards the meltingly-good cheeseburger. On a house potato bun, it’s lathered with addictive mustard (they don’t skimp on the horseradish), cheddar and arugula. Order “potted” pig: tender, shredded pig packed in a mason jar with a layer of lard on top, served with toasts and that fabulous mustard. Another humane, locally-sourced restaurant, Farmstead brings a casual playfulness I don’t see often enough in Wine Country.

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Hot sexy events: January 5-11

Andrew Lam

January 5, 2011

Strutting his stuff as the leather parade marshall in last year’s Pride festivities, Steve Ward no doubt had many thoughts relating to the thriving kink community that cavorted about him. But one of those was surely that people need a guide to this crazy wonderland. After all, many of us crave a good spanking at the hand of an experienced master — or vice versa — but often that urge has trouble translating readily into one’s role in the sex community.

Luckily, now we have a guide. Ward is organizing a class on Tues/11 entitled “The Crooked Path: Carving out your niche in the BDSM Communities,” a one-time course that will explore the difference in roles in the BDSM community from dungeon volunteers to leaders of events, and to those that adopt leather as a lifestyle versus those that do it on the studded side. The sociology of kink? Perhaps – give it a look to learn more about your sensual stylings. And hey, what’s the rest of all this? Oh, just another week of sexy SF events.

Beginner’s Dungeon Class

Angela and Iain, officers in the Society of Janus and dungeon masters extraordinaires teach this primer on how to rough up and get roughed up sexily and safely. There’s an art and etiquette to the SF BDSM scene – and being Emily Post ensures you’ll have plenty of friends to play with ’til that whippin’ wrist tires and your cheeks glow red.

Thurs/6 7:30-10:30 p.m., $10-20 sliding scale

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

Urge

For all those fond of house training, this play party is meant only for those kinky menfolk under the age of 40. Think of it – 5,400 square feet of naughty necessity, stocked with the younger half of kinky society! Does it get you hard? Does it polish your leather? Indulge those urges.

Fri/7 8-11 p.m., $25 membership required

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

Naughty Nibbles

Femina Potens has lost its clunky shoulder pads – the sexy art gallery (arty sex gallery) has shuffled off its bricks and mortar coil and, for the time being, will be holding events here and there about the sex-positive venues of SF. Tonight, they’re hosting an art-bondage melting pot in the hour before Mission Control’s lady lovin’ Pink party. Femina founder Madison Young talks shop about merging ropes and art, and FiveStar does an arty, ropesy number of her own. Art!

Fri/7 9-10 p.m., free, members only

Mission Control

2519 Mission, SF

Perverts Put Out

I have a lot of favorite FOX News clips, truly. Hilarity. But one of my tippy-top most near and dears has got to be its segment on Perverts Put Out, the sluttiest reading series out there. I believe it had something to do with the organization receiving a government art grant – something along those lines. The fact is, this is SF at its finest. This week, emcee Simon Sheppard welcomes the “talents” of Philip Huang, Greta Christina, and Lady Monster, among others.

Sat/8 7:30 p.m., $10-15 sliding scale

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org

Military

A particular poignant night of banging studs in a bar – don’t ask don’t tell has finally been stricken off the face of the earth! Surely, this will lead to legions of gays banging down army recruitment office doors – or at least great sales numbers for Raging Stallion’s newest release, Assghanistan (current SFBG office joke de rigueur, not actual impending release, sorry). This is Chap’s military fetish uniform night, so pack your camo jock.

Sat/8 6 p.m.-2 a.m., free

Chaps

1225 Folsom, SF

(415) 255-2427

The Crooked Path

A panel discussion of SF leather luminaries, all members eager to share with you the story of their ascent into the leather community’s leadership roles. Heading up the charge is Steve Ward, who serves on the national Leather Leadership Conference. Wondering where you fit into the wild rumpus? Here’s a great place to hear some educated opinions.

Tues/11 8-10 p.m., $20

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

Hot sexy events: December 29-January 4

Andrew Lam

December 28, 2010

“Scott and I wanted to create an adult playground that wasn’t just some hedonistic, narcissistic freefall into the apocalypse.” Co-founder Polly Superstar is ready to celebrate a decade of Mission Control‘s swingin’ good times at the play space (which she founded with hubby Baron Scott Levkoff)’s NYE party-ten year anniversary soiree Fri/31.

But first, a look back. “We wanted a place where people could feel safe exploring their sexuality without the rigidity of the BDSM scene, and without the expectation and pressure of the swinger scene.” And so MC’s been throughout the aughts: a land where art, sex, and hell yeah, theme parties, have been coming together to the greater glory of SF’s freaky, funky pansexual scene.

Superstar’s pumped about her brand’s expansion into Austin and her hometown of London – and between her, me, and you, there’s more to come. Try club openings in New York, Copenhagen, and Krakow, a how-to book on throwing your own sex party – and at the SF location kinksters have grown to bone and love, a 2011 event that will focus on ritual and sexuality and be hosted by Francesca Gentile (who has led similar rituals at MC events in the past). So pop them bottles, SF – spend your midnight with the Mission Control freaks, or sample some of the other tasty sex events on the NYE buffet line.

NYE at Mission Control

This new year marks a decade of ooo’s and ah’s done pansexual style at Mission Control – so what better way to show your thanks for their sexy play space than by attending their NYE bash? Onstage lineup includes spoken word artists Baraka and We Are The Unreal, as well as burlesque (and boylesque) artists, DJs, and an appearance by the dreaded, orgasm-stealing Coq Blok! Party in the front, sexy time in the back (rooms).

Fri/31 10 p.m.-3 a.m., $35-40 members only

Mission Control

2519 Mission, SF