Live

Opinion: Immigration policy, in Arizona and at home

Zelda Bronstein
-
14
Opinion: Immigration policy, in Arizona and at home

Editors note: This is an opinion piece the horrible immigration bill in Arizona — and its connections here in SF.


By Angela Chan


Mayor Gavin Newsom and City Attorney Dennis Herrera have publicly opposed the anti-immigrant bill, SB 1070 in Arizona.  A diverse coalition of civil rights organizations – including the Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Asian Law Caucus, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, Central American Resource Center, Community United Against Violence, Equal Justice Society, La Raza Centro Legal, National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, POWER, and Pride at Work SF — applauds both city officials for taking a strong stand against the Arizona bill.  At the same time, we urge Newsom and Herrera to firmly and unequivocally support the implementation of a local policy that protects the due process rights of immigrant youth in San Francisco.


As with SB 1070 in Arizona, the mayor’s policy of requiring juvenile probation officers to report young people to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) before they receive due process has opened the door to racial profiling and torn many innocent youth from their families.


Since July 2008, pursuant to Newsom’s draconian reporting policy, more than 160 youth have been reported to ICE right after arrest, before they even have had a chance to be heard in juvenile court. That means that youth who are completely innocent of any crimes and youth who are overcharged have been reported to ICE.


Despite the veto-proof passage of a policy by the Board of Supervisors last fall that moves the point of reporting from the arrest stage to after a youth is found to have committed a felony, Newsom has insisted on ignoring the new city law.  Herrera, in turn, has yet to advise implementation of the new law.


Like the Arizona bill, Newsom’s policy requires reporting to ICE when local officials – in this case juvenile probation officers – merely have “reasonable suspicion” that an individual is undocumented. The factors that probation officers are required to use to determine reasonable suspicion have come under fire for codifying racial profiling into law.  Such factors as “length of time in the country” and “presence of undocumented persons in the same area where arrested or involved in the same illegal activity” have little to do with accurately determining an individual’s status, and much more to do with targeting the entire immigrant community and those who live in heavily immigrant communities.


In March, a year and a half after the mayor’s policy went into effect, Chief Probation Officer William Siffermann admitted before the Rules Committee of the Board of Supervisors that the latter factor could lead to racial profiling.  A few days later, Herrera stated that this factor had been removed from the policy.  However, if any changes have been made to the written policy, they have not been made available to the public.


Another similarity with the Arizona bill:  probation officers in San Francisco have not been properly trained and do not have the expertise in immigration law to accurately determine which youth are actually undocumented.  Rather, these officers rely on race, ethnicity, language ability, surnames, and accent as a basis for assuming immigration status.
Much like the Arizona bill, Mayor Newsom’s policy goes well beyond any obligations under federal law by requiring that probation officers report suspected undocumented youth to ICE.  As a cadre of legal scholars, including University of San Francisco Law Professor Bill Ong Hing, have repeatedly made clear, federal law does not require that city officials ask about immigration status or report individuals suspected of being undocumented to ICE.


Finally, as with the Arizona bill, the mayor’s draconian policy only compounds the harm to immigrant families caused by an already flawed federal immigration system, which is in drastic need of comprehensive reform. We need humane reform at the federal level, but in the meantime, Mayor Newsom and City Attorney Herrera need to take swift action to restore due process and protect family unity by ending San Francisco’s draconian policy. 


In standing up against racial profiling in Arizona, Mayor Newsom is back on the right track of defending immigrant rights — now is the time to give immigrant youth and families fairness and due process in San Francisco.


Angela Chan is staff attorney with the Juvenile Justice and Education Project at the Asian Law Caucus

Benefits: April 28-May 4

David Talbot
-
0
Benefits: April 28-May 4

Ways to have fun while giving back this week


Wednesday, April 28

Save the Waves
Attend this benefit for Chile, where donations will go to directly aid small coastal areas that were hit hardest by the Feb. 27th earthquake and following tsunamis, featuring free food, surf flicks, raffles, and DJs Paul McNitt and Paul Hobi spinning soul, funk, house, breaks, and reggae.
8 p.m., free
Riptide
3639 Taraval, SF
www.savethewaves.org

Thursday, April 29

Hospitality House Art Auction
Help support Hospitality House’s Community Arts Program (CAP), a free fine arts studio and gallery space that provides professional instruction, materials, and sales and exhibition support for poor and homeless Tenderloin artists. This 25th anniversary auction will feature more than 150 unique pieces of art from a diverse collection of regional artists.
6 p.m., $30
Andrea Schwartz Gallery
525 2nd St., SF
www.hospitalityhouse.org

Toe to Toe
Attend this benefit for ODC Dance Commons and Cal Athletics featuring a live competition between ODC/Dance’s contemporary dance company and top student athletes from UC Berkeley to see who’s the better athlete: dancers or sports stars. Judges to include San Francisco 49ers Ronnie Lott, Harris Barton, Nate Clements, MC Hammer, and more. Hosted by Warren Hellman.
6:30 p.m., $125
Herbst Pavilion
Fort Mason Center, SF
www.slimstickets.com

Friday, April 30

Blue Ribbon Luncheon
Help support the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center, an organization dedicated to the prevention of child abuse and neglect, at this luncheon featuring three-time Super Bowl champion and former 49er Riki Ellison, and Emmy-award winning co-anchor of ABC 7/KGO TV Cheryl Jennings as master of ceremonies.
Noon, $250
Westin St. Francis Hotel
335 Powell, SF
www.sfcapc.org

Hold the Light for Haiti and Chile
Join Bay Area poets as they gather in support of efforts to assist the men, women, and children in Haiti and Chile who have been devastated by the recent earthquakes. Poets to include Diane di Prima, Al Young, Devorah Major, Mary Rudge, Deborah Grossman, and many more. Proceeds will be donated to Doctors Without Borders.
6 p.m., $5-10 suggested donation
Islamic Cultural Center
1433 Madison, Oak.
www.penoakland.org

Noe Valley Uncorked
Learn about and sample Argentinean wine at this wine event featuring on-hand experts and hors d’ oeuvres. Door proceeds benefit the Noe Valley Ministry.
6 p.m., $35
Noe Valley Ministry
1021 Sanchez, SF
www.noevalleyministry.org

Saturday, May 1

Bay Area Brain Tumor Walk
Attend this inspirational, all-ages fundraising walk to support the fight against brain tumors, featuring food, music, prizes, and more.
9 a.m.; raise a minimum amount of $350 or donate what you can
Speedway Meadow
Golden Gate Park
299 Tansverse, SF
www.bayareawalk.org

Sunday, May 2

Bliss 2010
Help support Maitri, the only AIDS-specific residential care facility left in the Bay Area, at this gala and auction featuring stand-up comedian Sandra Bernhard and designer Carmen Marc Valvo and food from top SF restaurants, drinks, live music, and more.
6 p.m., $150
Golden Gate Club
Presidio, Fisher Loop, SF
www.maitrisf.org

Mother’s Day Diaper Drive
Bring your kids to this fundraiser family day to benefit Help a Mother Out (HAMO), a grassroots advocacy campaign dedicated to improving the lives of mothers, children, and families, featuring games, crafts, pizza, cupcakes, and complimentary kiddie photo sessions. Proceeds will be used to purchase diapers for HAMO’s Bay Area partners. 
3 p.m., $40 per family
Peekadoodle Kidsclub
900 North Point, suite F100, SF
www.helpamotherout.org

Wanderlust at the Fillmore
In the spirit of the Wanderlust festival in North Lake Tahoe, this yoga and music festival will offer yoga classes during the day courtesy of Yoga Tree and live music performances featuring Rupa and the April Fishes at night. A portion of the proceeds benefit
Off the Mat, Into the World.
4 p.m. yoga, 7 p.m. concert; $25-$55
Fillmore
1805 Geary, SF
www.yogatreesf.com

Monday, May 3

“Aurora Borealis”
Wine and dine for a cause at this fundraiser for the Aurora Theater Company’s live performances, education program, and the Global Age Project, featuring specialty wines, silent auction, three-course meal, live entertainment, and more.
6 p.m., $200
Hotel Shattuck Plaza
Crystal Ballroom
2086 Allston, Berk.
(510) 843-4042, ext. 312

North Beach and Chinatown lift forks for Noodlefest 2010

Andrew Lam
-
1
North Beach and Chinatown lift forks for Noodlefest 2010

I do love me some noodles. As do we all — just ask the cooks carving them from a solid, gyro like block of pasta at the Seattle Chinese restaurant I once blissfully attended, or the happy fettuccine eaters at the sidewalk cafes on Columbus Avenue. The world would be a better place if we could all put down our weapons and pick up our forks and spoons.

Which is roughly what is happening at this weekend’s Noodlefest 2010 (Sun/2). Sure, the days of armed warfare between North Beach and Chinatown may be safely behind us (were they ever in existence), but the two adjacent neighborhoods rarely come together to plan community happenings. Harken to the candlelit dinner scene in The Lady and the Tramp — it takes a pasta strand to break the ice, and bring you snout to snout.

But why eat a strand when you can sample six different pasta meals? Entry to Noodlefest gets you a taste of three steaming mountains of Chinatown noodles, and three from North Beach, in addition to live noodle making demonstrations and entertainment of all stripes.

So grab a fork. And to reinforce what this peaceful coexistence of culinary traditions signifies in the history of our city, two long time residents of the neighborhoods, Reverend Norman Fong of the Chinatown Community Development Center, and Dan Macchiarini of the North Beach Merchants’ Association, sent us their memoirs of growing up in the city’s historically Chinese and Italian ‘hoods. If the following tales of downtown SF life in the ‘50s and ‘60s don’t make you feel all noodley inside, then I don’t know what will.


Noodlefest 2010
Sun/2 3-7pm, $15
Grant, between Pacific & Vallejo, SF
www.chinatowncdc.org
———————-

The yin and yang of Chinese-Italian relationships
By Reverend Norman Fong, Chinatown Community Development Center

During the 1950s and 1960s,  it wasn’t all fine and dandy growing up in Chinatown and North Beach, although I wouldn’t trade my life experience for anything. In my younger elementary school years, I was a Chinatown kid; all my classmates were Chinese-Americans.

Then I had to cross Washington Square to head to Francisco Jr. High, where I learned about other races.  I remember having a crush on one very cute girl who lived in North Beach but I was too shy to ever ask her out and there weren’t too many cross-cultural relations back then. I also remember some very negative moments when groups of Italian boys would harass me.

One time I was chased by these boys who screamed “let’s get the Chinaman” and they tied me to the fence near St. Peter & Paul and they threw water balloons at me. I went home and I told my mom “I hate italians” and explained what happened.

My mom said life was about balance. “Did you know our landlord is Italian? He only charges us $90 rent and never raised the rent?” I didn’t fully understand at the time just how much that meant, but I do now. Years later, when I was about 18 years old, we were evicted from our home — by a Chinese landlord who bought the building.

Life is about balance, the Yin and Yang of life. Dan Macchiarini and Kathleen Dooley of the North Beach Merchants Association are friends because we shared the same block at the Chinatown Community Development Center office at 1525 Grant. I bought my Valentine’s Day flowers from Kathleen for my wife a number of years.

This Noodlefest is not just about noodles, spaghetti versus chow mein… It’s about relationships… and building cultural bridges… and “balance.”

Fireworks and noodles
By Dan Macchiarini, North Beach Merchants’ Association


Back in the day of the day, back when I was around 9 years old in the early 1960’s, I was among a bunch of kids my age from North Beach and Chinatown who would regularly play pick up games of football in Washington Square. Park Saturdays, Sundays, and whenever we could during the summer. We would have played baseball but the adults using the park wouldn’t let us and we could only play softball down at the Joe DiMaggio playground.

This was also a time when there were no real playgrounds at all in Chinatown, so a lot of the Chinese kids would come across Broadway to play in North Beach at Washington Square Park with us Italian kids. Some kids from Chinese ancestry lived in North Beach already. We got along fairly well too, considering the nonsensical historic animosity between a lot of our parents from our two distantly different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

We also hung out and played tennis dodge ball in the alley streets in both communities. These alleys during the day were very safe and were the kind of the place where car drivers looked out for and expected us kids to be.   Chinatown and North Beach both share a network of smallish streets and alleys. We made these “kids turf” when we weren’t in the park.

However, the most fun time for us was around mid February every year. It was always rainy and cold but this is the time of Chinese New Year. None of us Italian kids, even on the fourth of July, had access to fire works like the Chinese kids did. This made for a great trading relationship between us, everything from baseball cards to candy and sometimes even money changed hands for us to get the fireworks and use them. We had great contests blowing up tin cans, setting off stings of fire crackers to see how much noise and smoke we could make, until we got nailed by our parents who would attempt to restrict our alley pyrotechnics antics, commerce and careers on both sides of the ethnic divide.

The Chinese kids seemed to be at greater liberty to get and use these fireworks than we Italian kids were. It didn’t seem fair to me. I asked my father why this was. He said it was part of their culture and explained the “lunar new year.” He and my mother regularly took us to the Chinese New Year parade during the late 1950s and early 1960s. There were massive fireworks and firecrackers there, mostly still in the rain but spectacular at night during the parade of dragons and lions.

Before the parade, my parents would take my sister and I to dinner in their favorite Chinese restaurant and they would order all kinds of exotic dishes.  The restaurant, still there, was up Washington Street just off Grant Ave., three block off of Broadway and, literally, under the building. You walk down concrete steps to the doorway. Very “old school” Chinatown. My father knew all the waiters and the owner would greet us with broad smile.  Somehow, they knew each other back in their day, the 1930s, when everyone was struggling just to survive. So we got the VIP treatment there.

The food was incredibly good, although as a nine year old, I was somewhat picky — which my father had a VERY low tolerance for. I loved the Chinese noodles, all the chow mien dishes, and was okay with the rice dishes, but I had a lot of trouble with egg fu yung types; they tasted runny and raw to me. My mother insisted that my sister and I “try everything” they ordered, and my father would cuff me in the head to get my attention and tell me to “eat all your food.” I evolved a plan through; it involved a conspiracy with my sister because she loved egg fu yung. When my parents were distracted and not looking, we would change plates under the table. This all worked out fairly well until one time when we dropped one of the plates we were exchanging under the table. The food hit the floor and my father hit the ceiling. I was good at ducking, though. Luckily, the waiters and the owner were in fits laughter over this so my father’s temper cooled off fast but my mother made us kids sit through the rest of the meal without ANY more food as well as having to help the waiters picked up the mess.

I complained to my father, asking him why I couldn’t just eat the chow mien, like the pasta we made and ate at home. He told me that he brought me out to a Chinese restaurant so “you can learn” the taste of the way other people make food — and beside, the Chinese invented pasta too.

He said it was part of history, that about 800 years ago Marco Polo, an Italian merchant, went to China from Europe to Asia along the silk road to trade — and brought the idea of pasta to Italy and Europe (along with gunpowder).

He went on about this history, lecturing about how food was part of culture and we, as kids, should experience all kinds of food to learn about all kinds of cultures.  This lasted about ten minutes, but it still didn’t get me to like egg fu yung — although a thought pushed itself into my nine year old mind that those Chinese kids I played and “traded” with in the alleys of North Beach and Chinatown for fireworks were my “Silk Road,” and going between North Beach and Chinatown was truly great adventure.

St. Elvis?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
St. Elvis?

TV BIOPIC The John Carpenter-directed biopic Elvis hit network TV airwaves in 1979, ironically enough in the same time slot as that slice of Deep South Americana Gone With the Wind (1939). The Big E had expired just two years previously, and Elvis worship was in full flower. The TV movie thus squeezed out the Gable-Leigh epic to take top spot in the nation’s hearts, for that night anyway.

Released in March on DVD in its full three-hour glory, Elvis was put together by Dick Clark’s production company, which apparently wanted a fairly by-the-numbers hagiography. Kurt Russell does a credible job of capturing the curled lip and intonation of the humble country boy who wore flashy clothes and mixed white country, black blues, and various pop influences until he hit the big time.

Screenwriter Anthony Lawrence worked on several of Elvis’ less than groundbreaking Hollywood vehicles, including Roustabout (1964) and Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966). Lawrence also penned scripts for both The Outer Limits and Medical Center, which might be even better qualifications for writing about someone who had as many problems with impulse control as Presley.

But, alas, the life we see is oddly squeaky clean. We see nary a caffeine tablet eaten. Lawrence depicts Elvis remaining fairly chaste while waiting to find his true love Priscilla (Season Hubley), not to mention during the additional time spent waiting for her to mature to legal marrying age. (For those jaded souls who need something a bit more salacious, e.g. the skinny on the King’s thing with Tura Satana, check out Alanna Nash’s recent Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him.)

We see Elvis the seeker reading a passage from Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet aloud to Priscilla, but nowhere is there a shot of his other favorite bedside reading, The Physicians’ Desk Reference. According to Elvis biographer Bobbie Ann Mason, he used said volume “like a shopping catalog.”

We do get Shelley Winters as Elvis’ beloved mother Gladys, surely one of the oddest casting choices in the Carpenter ouevre. The black wig Winters sports made me think of Divine, which in turn reminded me of how much more fun I had watching the 1950s rock ‘n’ roll cutting up in John Waters’ Cry-Baby (1990).

Carpenter’s thumping synthesizer soundtrack tunes, so key to the addictive pleasures of his horror pictures — including They Live (1988) and Halloween (1978) — are sadly absent. There are decent versions of early Sun numbers with some guy named Ronnie McDowell doing credible vocals. Maybe the creepy synth would be more appropriate for a follow-up biopic on the final years (this one ends in 1969; Presley’s ended in 1977), including a recreation of Elvis’ legendary 1970 White House meeting with Richard Nixon.

Murder, he filmed

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Murder, he filmed

arts@sfbg.com

Get your shit peeled/ Check the murder rate, the shit’s real. —Eddi Projex, "Straight from Oakland"

MUSIC/FILM I first met Pretty Black, a member of Yukmouth’s Regime crew, in 2005 at the Mekanix’ studio in Oakland. He arrived with Husalah of the Mob Figaz to record. Goofing off, Hus urged me to get on the song, so I recorded an intro in mangled French, dubbing the pair "les hommes mobs." Black loved the pronunciation (moeb) and thus began one of my least likely rap-world friendships.

For even by rap standards, Black was a live wire. The 25-year-old always had a pistol on him, was always ready to fight, and, with his Range Rover and Lamborghini, clearly made his money off the street, though I didn’t inquire how. He was an angry young man, not someone to piss off. Yet according to Husalah, he had another side.

"Outside the circle, he seemed like the coldest dude on earth," Hus says. "But inside, you knew he was real compassionate. He provided for his niggas. And if you needed something, he was very resourceful."

"Plus," he adds, "if someone tried to fuck with you, he already knocked ’em out before you could even react."

Born in Chicago, Black was christened Ayoola Matthew Odumuyiwa by his Nigerian immigrant parents. When he first came to the Bay, he was known as Verstyle, but soon adopted the more in your face Pretty Black, a pun on the pimp sense of "pretty" (a "gorgeous" man) and his very dark skin. Like albino Jamaican rapper Yellowman, Black transformed a perceived negative — his color placing him on the lowest rung of our country’s caste system — into a defiant positive.

In 2008, on my birthday, May 25 (not, as sometimes reported, on May 30), Black was shot to death at an apartment complex where his relatives lived, a planned assassination. In other words, not random violence or robbery. Except for the killers, no one knows why. I was shocked because, while I could imagine someone wanting to kill him, I’d never known a murder victim. It’s like a candle flame being blown out: one second, fully here; the next, gone. I recalled, too, the last time I’d seen him, at a show featuring the Jacka. As we were catching up, he said, apropos of nothing, "Remember when we met and recorded that song? That was cool. Le moeb!" While ordinary at the time, this circling back to the night we met took on a retrospective uncanniness, as did one of his last songs, also recorded with the Mekanix, on which Black, playing both parts of a phone call, tells himself, "Don’t go outside, nigga. They’re trying to kill you."

BACK TO BLACK


I’ve been thinking about Black lately, in large part due to Land of the Homicide: The Murders in Oakland, CA (HookerBoyFilmz/HBO), a documentary DVD by Oakland filmmaker Dame Hooker. Brought into the game by veteran director Kevin Epps and multimedia journalist JR, Hooker has manned the cameras since 2001, releasing his first DVD, an overview of the local rap scene called The Bay Got Game (HookerBoy), in 2006. He’s also notched artist-oriented flicks like Mistah FAB’s Prince of the Bay (HookerBoy/InYoFace, 2007), among numerous other projects. Camera on shoulder, he’s a ubiquitous presence at any significant function, constantly accumulating footage of anything from a performance to a sideshow to an ass-whupping in high definition.

"I had a camera, but I was just shooting around the hood," Hooker recalls. "I didn’t know how to edit or anything. But FAB, Stalin, Shady Nate — I watched those dudes grow up. I started going to all their shows and they wanted the footage, so I learned how to edit just by watching TV or watching somebody else. Current TV on HBO showed me a lot about how to put it in a format."

Indeed, he nailed the format so well that Current TV licensed some of his footage and hired him and Epps to make content for the program’s Web site, which proved to be the genesis of the Land of the Homicide project.

"We did a pod, a little five-minute segment for Current TV," Hooker says. "It was called Popped in Oakland. I went around to my friends and was like, tell me how you got shot, and they was showing their wounds. HBO wanted me to extend it, and I was doing that already."

Some of the wounds are pretty grisly. One man pulls up a sleeve to display an arm that got sprayed with an AK. The arm is functional but it looks like a tree root, all twisted and gnarled, a permanent symbol of the gun problem in Oakland — which frequently leads the nation in homicides — not to say the entire country. Hooker himself hasn’t been immune to the violence. He shows me some of his own wounds.

"You got to know how to maneuver around here," he says grimly. "You can get shot just by looking at someone wrong. I got shot five times. Somebody thought I looked at them funny. I didn’t have no money on me or nothing."

RANDOM TARGETS


As Hooker’s own story suggests, Oakland’s gun violence often has a random quality to it. People get shot, sometimes killed, by mistake, in addition to intended victims like Pretty Black. One of the more notorious accidental murders was Jesse "Plan Bee" Hall, founder of the classic 1990s crew Hobo Junction, who was shot in 1992 while sitting next to the intended target. Among the interviewees are Plan Bee’s parents, his sister, and his younger brother, Bobby "Blu-Nose" Hall, as Hooker provides an unflinching look at the family’s devastation and grief. Before the end of the film, however, he winds up returning to the Hall residence as Blu-Nose himself is murdered, seemingly, like his brother, a random target.

"I got a large family. None of my family members have passed away like that," Hooker says. "Except my first cousin — we was real close — and my uncle, [and] two uncles, on my mother’s side. All the rest have been friends, but my friends be like my family."

Ordinarily, Blu-Nose’s death would raise a question like what are the odds of someone speaking on camera about gun violence being killed by gun violence shortly afterward? But this being Oakland, the question is: what are the odds of this occurring three times in quick succession? Because this is exactly what happens with Land of the Homicide, separating it from similarly-themed hood documentaries. Another of the main interviewees, a rapper from the East Oakland’s 70s named Hennessey who had many previous wounds to display, is also murdered. Though I hadn’t heard his music, I’d already begun to hear Hennessey’s name here and there; he’d just signed to Thizz for his first major project shortly before his death, and the contrast between his on-camera gregariousness and the extremely dapper corpse we see at his funeral makes a more emphatic argument against the legality of guns than any commentary could.

Pretty Black is the third victim. Although he didn’t have prior wounds himself, Black bumped into Hooker during the filming and agreed to lend his perspective as someone who knew the street life all too well.

"I was going around getting their opinion about the stuff," Hooker recalls. "Most of them was trying to help people, trying to get their hood right. I don’t know if it was a curse doing the DVD or what, but they all died back to back. It was supposed to be about the lives taken in Oakland, but it turned out to be the people that was interviewed."

I don’t think there’s a word for Hooker’s experience here. Obviously the tragic series of murders gives his DVD an authority and authenticity most documentaries couldn’t buy. But the price is not something he would have willingly paid.

"Land of the Homicide, that’s based on really good friends," he said. "DVDs, those don’t matter when it’s someone you know."

From Cleveland with love

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
2
From Cleveland with love

johnny@sfbg.com

MUSIC Baby Dee is not your generic person in a band, with dull quotes about the process of recording an album. Baby Dee has something to say, and she says it with light power, ever so occasionally punctuating a comment with a machine-gun laugh that’s love-at-first-hearing. Some would say Baby Dee’s music is more of an acquired taste, but the new A Book of Songs for Anne Marie (Drag City) strips her musicality down to its essence, and the result, while owing a generative debt to German Lieder, is crystalline in a manner that trumps more affectation-laden contemporaries like Joanna Newsom and the musician most often compared to Dee, her friend Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons. Mabel Mercer comes to mind. On the eve of Dee’s SF visit, I got her on the horn, and the result was good enough that I didn’t want to write or talk around it. So here it is — 100-proof Baby Dee.

On the use of the Baby Dee song “Cavalry” in Joao Pedro Rodrigues’ movie To Die Like A Man: “He told me [it was the heart of the film] when I met him and I thought he was just blowing smoke up my ass. But so many reviews have said that he lavished all his gifts on that one scene.

How truly wonderful. Most people get a song in a movie and just an inconsequential fragment is playing in the background, but here the whole movie stops and everyone listens to the song — you can’t ask for more than that.

On her hometown: “I love Cleveland. It took me a long time to love Cleveland. I hated it all the time growing up. I left when I was 18 years old like a bullet out of a gun and never went back for more than a day at a time for almost 30 years.

The house I actually live in now, my recurring nightmare was to walk into the front door of that house. That was my end-of-the-world dream, instead of a holocaust or a great tsunami.

About ten years ago I went back there and ended up staying because my parents were in such bad shape. I was just experimenting with good behavior. [Laughs]

When they died I was stuck there, I’d lost my apartment in New York. I quit music and had a tree business. Then I woke up one morning and realized that I liked Cleveland. But it took me a lifetime. I’ve loved it ever since.

I never really toured the states, I’d toured Europe, and seeing what the rest of America is like made me love Cleveland. In Cleveland there is zero attitude at all. Nobody is cool in Cleveland, and if they are, it sure as hell isn’t because they live in Cleveland. The cool cities in America are New York, New Orleans — or what’s left of it — and San Francisco. In it’s own crazy way Vegas is cool. And maybe Niagara Falls.

New York is the city that never sleeps. I used to call Cleveland the city that shits the bed.”

On Marc Almond: “I adore, I worship Marc Almond. He’s one of the greatest people in the world in addition to being a great singer. People tend to think he’s a sweetheart, but in his case it’s absolutely true — he’s as good as gold. And we’ve got history — I gave him reasons to not be as good as gold to me. [Laughs] He’s just a prince.”

On German Lieder and classical music: “It had its influence on me, but in strange ways. When I grew up, I would leave the room when people would play Schubert. I couldn’t take it. It was an irrational hatred, and I haven’t had many musical ones. But there was history there — we took piano lessons, and my father had sort of been cast [by life] in the role of the Erl King with the dying child. Ooo, oogedy-boogedy, don’t go there! That kind of thing. We had to play some simple child’s version of Schubert’s Der Erlkönig, and my father was really into it without even having self-awareness why. He’d say “Play that one again” over and over, not even realizing it was about the death of his own soul. Hideous.

I was more at home with really, really old music. As a matter of fact I avoided the entire 19th century. It isn’t that there wasn’t beautiful music — Chopin, Beethoven — but I avoided the whole thing. I discovered Bach and went backwards from there. I was fascinated by Gregorian music and I finally got as a far as the Renaissance and became obsessed with [Giovanni Pieruigi da Palestrina] and the Spanish composer [Juan Evo] Morales [Ayma] and [Tomas Luis de] Victoria.”

On Joey Arias: “It’s not like Joey Arias is underrated. He might be the most beloved living drag singer. But he’s sort of ghettoized, very unfairly. I think he’s one of the greatest vocalists alive. If you’ve ever heard Joey get serious, there’s no greater heartbreaker.”

On her relation to the New York club scene: “The whole time cool things were happening in New York, I was in some dusty old piano loft in the South Bronx playing Palestrina on an organ.”

On her drink of choice: “It depends on when and where. If it’s before dinner, J&B Scotch on the rocks. If it’s after, it would definitely be Armagnac.”

BABY DEE

With Karl Blau, Jeffery Manson

Fri/30, 9 p.m., $12

Amnesia

853 Valencia, SF

(415) 970-0012

www.amnesiathebar.com

The Daily Blurgh: Staples city

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
The Daily Blurgh: Staples city

Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

Shocker! San Francisco-based company set to profit off of humans willing to pay for amorous companionship.

*****

I Live Here: SF to live at SomARTS this fall.

*****

Google Maps gets you where you want to go (without going through Arizona).

*****

The gist: Breaking down the five, big legal questions in the iPhone case

*****

Which staple city would you rather live in: Ephemicropolis

or The Big Apple?

*****

I’ll see your KFC Double Down and raise you a cheesecake-stuffed pancake. (Offer very valid in Qatar.)

*****

But even if you’re only scarfing down the sprouted wheat bread, you’re still gonna die.

*****

Once-local, now big-in-France melancholy chanteuse Emily Jane White gets some love from NPR for her new album Victorian America.

*****

And speaking of sadness: “It is such a secret place, the land of tears.”  — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Rep Clock

David Talbot
-
0

Schedules are for Wed/28–Tues/4 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-8. “Anxiety and Apple Seeds:” B (Cardenas, 2010), Fri, 8. Hosted by the film’s star, comedian Mary Van Note. “Other Cinema:” The Juche Idea (Finn, 2008), Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $10. Wild at Heart (Lynch, 1990), Wed, 7. Presented by City Lights Bookstore and featuring readings by Barry Gifford, Robert Mailer Anderson, Eddie Muller, and more.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. Donations accepted. “Palestine: Occupied Lives, Non-Violence, and Steadfastness:” Bil’in My Love (Carmeli-Pollack, 2006), Fri, 7.

CAFÉ OF THE DEAD 3208 Grand, Oakl; (510) 931-7945. Free. “Independent Filmmakers Screening Nite,” Wed, 6:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. “Kubrick:” •Lolita (1962), Wed, 2:15, 8, and Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Wed, 5; •2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Thurs, 2:30, 8, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg, 2001), Thurs, 5:05. San Francisco International Film Festival, Fri-Tues. See film listings.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. The Greatest (Feste, 2009), call for dates and times. Vincere (Bellocchio, 2009), call for dates and times. “Red Riding Trilogy:” Red Riding 1980 (Marsh, 2009), Wed, 6:30; Red Riding 1983 (Tucker, 2009), Thurs, 6:30. Touching Home (Miller and Miller, 2009), April 30-May 6, call for times.

CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO Ocean Campus, 50 Phelan, Cloud Hall, Rm 246, SF; (415) 239-3580. Free. City of Borders (Suh, 2009), Wed, 7. HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. A Story From the Deep North (Browne, 2008), Wed, 7:30. JACK LONDON SQUARE PAVILION THEATER 98 Broadway, Oakl; www.oakuff.org. Free. “Oakland Underground Film Festival: Major Music:” Sonic Youth: Sleeping Nights Awake (Project Moonshine, 2006), Fri, 8; Kurt Cobain: About a Son (Schnack, 2006), Fri, 9:30. MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Day and Noir:” Act of Violence (Zinneman, 1948), Fri, 6. PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. San Francisco International Film Festival, April 23-May 6. See film listings. PIEDMONT 4186 Piedmont, Oakl; (510) 464-5980. $5-8. “Cult Classics Attack 5:” Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Spielberg, 1984), Fri-Sat, midnight; Sun, 10am. PIEDMONT VETERANS’ MEMORIAL BUILDING 401 Highland, Piedmont; www.works-exercise.com. $25-75. I Know a Woman Like That (Madsen, 2009), Thurs, 7. Benefit for the Works Cooperative dance and exercise studio with special guests including Rita Moreno and Maxine Hong Kingston. Advance tickets only. RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Police, Adjective (Porumboiu, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9:20 (also Wed, 2). The Wolfman (Johnston, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:25 (also Sat, 2, 4:15). The White Ribbon (Haneke, 2009), Sun-Mon, 5, 8 (also Sun, 2). Food, Inc. (Kenner, 2008), Tues, 5:30. Special benefit for Pie Ranch includes a reception, presentation about Pie Ranch, and movie screening. Tickets are $25; advance purchase at www.pieranch.org. ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Birdemic: Shock and Terror (Nguyen, 2008), Fri-Sat, 11. SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF CRAFT AND FOLK ART 51 Yerba Buena Lane, SF; www.mocfa.org. $40. Bamako Chic (Gosling and Downs, work in progress), Thurs, 7. Benefit screening with live Malian food and music. SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. “Canines on Camera:” Best in Show (Guest, 2001), Thurs, noon. SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 3030 20th St, SF; www.soex.org. $10. “How-To Homestead Hootenanny,” homesteading movie shorts, food tastings, and live music and dancing, Thurs, 7. STONESTOWN TWIN 501 Buckingham, SF; (415) 221-8182. $7.50-10.25. The Harimaya Bridge (Woolfolk, 2009), Wed-Thurs, call for times.

Stage listings

David Talbot
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Echo’s Reach Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St; 665-2275, www.citycircus.org. $14-35. Opens Fri/30, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 4pm); Sun, 4pm. Through May 30. City Circus premieres an urban fairytale by Tim Barsky.

Geezer Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Opens Sat/1, 8:30pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm (May 9 show at 8pm). Through May 23. Geoff Hoyle presents a workshop performance of his new solo show about aging.

Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Opens Sun/2, 7pm. Runs Thurs, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 27. Thrillpeddlers work their revival magic on the Cockettes’ 1972 musical extravaganza.

BAY AREA

Terroristka Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (415) 891-7235, www.brownpapertickets.com. $12-20. Previews Fri/30-Sat/1, 8pm. Opens Sun/2, 5pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 16. Threshold: Theatre on the Verge performs Rebecca Bella’s drama, based on the true story of a Chechen woman trained as a suicide bomber.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Wy, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $10-50. Opens Sun/2, 11am. Runs Sun, 11am. Through June 27. The Amazing Bubble Man, a.k.a. Louis Pearl, performs his family-friendly show.

ONGOING

An Accident Magic Theatre, Bldg D, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna; 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $25-55. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm; Tues, 7pm. Through May 9. Magic Theatre closes their season with Lydia Stryk’s world premiere drama.

Andy Warhol: Good For the Jews? Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida; 292-1233, www.tjt-sf.org. $15-45. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 16. Renowned monologist Josh Kornbluth is ready to admit his niche is a narrow one: he talks about himself, and more than that, he talks about his relationship to his beloved late father, the larger-than-life old-guard communist of Kornbluth’s breakthrough Red Diaper Baby. So it will not be surprising that in his current (and still evolving) work, created with director David Dower, the performer-playwright’s attempt to "enter" Warhol’s controversial ten portraits of famous 20th-century Jews (neatly illuminated at the back of the stage) stirs up memories of his father, along with a close family friend — an erudite bachelor and closeted homosexual who impressed the boyhood Josh with bedtime stories culled from his dissertation. The scenes in which Kornbluth recreates these childhood memories are among the show’s most effective, although throughout the narrative Kornbluth, never more confident in his capacities, remains a knowing charmer. But the story’s central conceit, concerning his ambivalence over presenting a showing of "Warhol’s Jews" at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum, feels somehow artificial. It’s almost a stylized rendition of the secular-Jewish moral quandary and neurotic obsession driving Kornbluth works of the past — or in other words, all surface, not unlike the work of another shock-haired artist, but less meaningfully so. (Avila)

The Diary of Anne Frank Next Stage, 1620 Gough; 1-800-838-3006, www.custommade.org. $10-28. Thurs/29-Sat/1, 8pm. Custom Made performs Wendy Kesselman’s modern take on the classic.

"DIVAfest" Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.theexit.org. Check website for dates and times. Through Sat/1. Small town girls, they’re all so tragically alike: dreaming eternally of escape, whether by land or luck or love. For stranded sisters Finn and Sarah in The Wind and Rain (part of DIVAfest), the seasons slide slowly past, like the river that powers the dead-end mill-town they bide their time in, waiting for an elusive something to change their lives. Acerbic tomboy Finn (Brynna Jourdan) leads the action and their relationship — pushing her timid sister Sarah (Jeanna Bean Veatch) to swim in the river, all the while admonishing her to remember there "is no such thing as a river." Meanwhile a mysterious fiddler (Rebecca Jackson) moves quietly about her isolated office on the periphery of the stage, occasionally underscoring the unfolding story with a mournful pull of her bow across strings. The plot is thin, and slightly scripted, but the delicately structured buildup to the presumptive murder is gently compelling. As summer fades into fall and winter into spring, so does Sarah’s budding romance with Finn’s ex (the nameless Miller’s son of the ballad on which the play is based) blossom quite literally in an explosion of petals sprinkled across the stage, followed closely by the predetermined dose of sororicidal rage and a stirring musical dénouement. (Gluckstern)
Eat, Pray, Laugh! Off-Market Theaters, 965 Mission; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Wed, 8pm. Through May 26. Off-Market Theaters presents stand up comic and solo artist Alicia Dattner in her award-winning solo show.

*Master Class New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed/28-Sat/1, 8pm; Sun/2, 2pm. Terrence McNally’s lovingly clever and thoroughly engaging portrait-play about opera icon Maria Callas takes the inspired notion of post-career Callas (Michaela Greeley) teaching a Julliard master class of eager young singers, while naturally finding herself unable to resist dominating the stage once more. Through a set of arias performed to piano accompaniment (by Kenneth Helman) by a cast of actor-singers (Alyssa Stone, Holly Nugent, Gustavo Hernández), Callas’s unselfconsciously curt and even brutal interactions with the students finally evoke for this deeply proud yet insecure woman both past theatrical glories and backstage heartaches. The play receives an impressive, all-around satisfying production at New Conservatory Theatre under Arturo Catricala’s astute direction. Of course, even with decent to excellent work on and off stage by the entire production team — including a stately mood-setting scenic design by Kuo-Hao Lo — it would no doubt amount to little without a formidable lead actor to fill Callas’s elegant but slightly over-the-top shoes. Here a marvelously imposing yet charming Greeley delivers the part as if she were born to play it, and all goes swimmingly as a result. (Avila)

"A Night of Funny Firsts" Shotwell Studios, 3252A 19th St; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-15. Fri/30-Sat/1, 8pm. A sharp and consistently amusing trio of short plays makes up this Footloose-sponsored "night of funny firsts," which actually leads off with a welcome return: the encore run of Cynthia Brinkman’s Evolution of a Kiss, a clever and charming trans-autobiographical solo flight that builds on the writer-performer’s incarnation of three first-kisses across three generations of Latina women, beginning with her Mexican grandmother’s 1934 snog and ending with her own wayward gropings in the late-80s. Brinkman is a competent, confident and charismatic talent who lets nothing, including the fourth wall, stand between her and a good story. She also proves an able director in the second part of the evening, given over to two expert comedic sketches by playwright Wayne Rawley — Controlling Interest and Happiness Is Like a Beautiful, Bright, Shiny Red Apple — both pretty brilliantly manifested by actors Nick Dickson, Matt Gunnison, Maria Leigh, Tavis Kammet, Jason Pienkowski and Holly Silk. (Avila)

Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St.; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Fri-Sat, 8pm, through June 26; starting July 10, runs Sat, 8pm and Sun, 7pm. Extended through August 1. Thrillpeddlers presents this revival of the legendary Cockettes’ 1970 musical extravaganza.

Peter Pan Threesixty Theater, Ferry Park (on Embarcadero across from the Ferry Bldg); www.peterpantheshow.com. $30-125. Previews Wed/28 and May 5, 2pm; Thurs/29, 7pm; Fri/30-Sat/1, 7:30pm (also Sat/1, 2pm); Sun/2, 1 and 5pm. Opens May 8, 7:30pm. Runs Tues and Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 7:30pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed, 2pm; Sun, 1 and 5pm. Through August 29. JM Barrie’s tale is performed in a specially-built 360-degree CGI theater.

The Real Americans The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $18-50. Wed-Thurs and May 28, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 30. The Marsh presents the world premiere of Dan Hoyle’s new solo show.

Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show Marines’ Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter; 771-6900. $30-89. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through May 23. From somewhere before the Beatles and after Broadway "Beatlemania" comes this big band cigarettes-and-high-ball nightclub act, recreating the storied Vegas stage shenanigans of iconic actor-crooners Frank Sinatra (David DeCosta), Dean Martin (Tony Basile), and Sammy Davis Jr. (Doug Starks), and sidekick comedian Joey Bishop (Sandy Hackett). The excuse, if one were needed, is that god (voiced in mealy nasal slang by Buddy Hackett, appropriately enough) has deemed a Rat Pack encore of supreme importance to the continued unfurling of his inscrutable plan, and thus unto us a floorshow is given. The band is all-pro and the songs sound great — DeCosta’s singing as Sinatra is uncanny, but all do very presentable renditions of signature songs and standards. Meanwhile, a lot of mincing about the stage and the drink cart meets with more mixed success, and I don’t just mean scotch and soda. The Rat Pack is pre-PC, of course, but the off-color humor, while no doubt historically sound, can be dully moronic — and the time-warp didn’t prevent someone in opening night’s audience from laying into Hackett’s opening monologue for a glib reference to suicide. Though talk about killing: thanks to the heckler, the actor — son to Buddy and the show’s co-producer (alongside chanteuse Lisa Dawn Miller, who sings a cameo as Frank’s "One Love") — got more life out of that joke over the rest of the evening than any other bit. (Avila)

SexRev: The José Sarria Experience Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission; 1-800-838-3006, www.therhino.org. $10-25. Wed/28-Sat/1, 8pm; Sun/2, 2pm. Theatre Rhinoceros presents John Fisher’s musical celebration of America’s first queer activist.

Shopping! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $27-29. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. The musical is now in its fifth year at Shelton Theater.

Tartuffe Studio 205 at Off-Market Theater, 965 Mission; 377-5882, http://generationtheatre.com. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 16. Generation Theatre performs a new English translation of Molière’s classic, in Alexandrine verse.

Tell It Slant Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Marina at Laguna; www.tixbayarea.com. $20-40. Fri-Sun, 8pm (also Sun, 2pm; no 8pm show May 16). Through May 16. BootStrap Foundation presents Sharmon J. Hilfinger and Joan McMillen’s musical about Emily Dickinson.

"Wanton Darkness: Two Plays By Harold Pinter and Conor McPherson" Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason; 335-6087. $24-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 8. Second Wind and Project 9 Productions co-present a double-bill of twisted and mysterious little-big plays under the umbrella title, "Wanton Darkness." The evening begins with Harold Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes, a pas de deux between a fortysomething couple, Rebecca (Lisa-Marie Newton) and Devlin (Lol Levy), wherein Devlin closely questions Rebecca about a certain sadomasochistic relationship and accompanying dreams, in vaguely menacing tones. The scenic design (by Fred Sharkey) suggests a psychiatrist’s office as much as "a New York penthouse apartment," which speaks to the ambiguity in the dialogue but also to the slightly heavy-handed approach taken here by the actors under Ian Walker’s direction. The touch is far more apt overall in the second play, St. Nicholas, also directed by Walker. An early effort by Irish playwright Conor McPherson (Shining City; The Seafarer), the play unfolds as a two-part monologue by a cynical drink-sodden theater critic (tell it, brother) who follows a spiral of self-loathing right down into the company of a set of fetching young vampires. With something like the quality of a gothic-styled AA testimonial, it proves a somewhat roving but intriguing yarn, nicely delivered by the capable Fred Sharkey. (Avila)

What Mama Said About Down There Our Little Theater, 287 Ellis; 820-3250, www.theatrebayarea.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through July 30. Writer-performer-activist Sia Amma presents this largely political, a bit clinical, inherently sexual, and utterly unforgettable performance piece.

BAY AREA

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-35. Fri, 9pm; Sat, 8pm. Through May 8. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

Equivocation Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-54. Wed/28, 7:30pm; Thurs/29 and Sat/1, 8pm (also Sat/1, 2pm); Sun/2, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company presents playwright Bill Cain’s award-winning hit, a sparksy drama that steeps itself in the history of Shakespeare’s life, labors and times to, among other things, draw pointed references to a barbaric period of fear, witch-hunting and state-sponsored torture ("Politics is religion for people who think they’re god," as one character has it). As staged by artistic director Jasson Minadakis, the play is nervously kinetic and pitched rather high by a cast of first-rate actors delivering surprisingly lackluster performances. The fact is Cain also bites off quite a bit in Equivocation, including "Shagspeare"’s (Charles Shaw Robinson) fraught relationship with his morosely clever daughter (Anna Bullard), neglected twin of the beloved son he lost — which is perhaps why some of it seems only half chewed by the end. The play — set in designer J.B. Wilson’s metallic two-tiered semi-circle representing the storied Globe Theatre, where the Bard wrote and occasionally acted alongside his fellow King’s Men as co-proprietor — has also a wearying tendency to spell its morals in block letters. Some genuine insight into the plays and their meaning then and now lifts interest in the fictionalized action, which otherwise skirts by on mild amusement, somewhat strained dialogue and familiar post-9/11 indignation. (Avila)

Girlfriend Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $27-71. Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Sat and Tues, 2pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 9. If you like Matthew Sweet’s songs you’ll probably like the spirited renditions in this new boy-meets-boy musical, which borrows its title from Sweet’s famous 1991 album. The songs, backed by a solid band in a recessed fake-wood-paneled den at the back of the stage, underscore the fraught but exhilarating emotional bond between two Nebraska teens at the end of their high school careers and the cusp of an anxious, ambiguous independence. The performances and chemistry generated by actors Ryder Bach and Jason Hite under Les Waters’ sharp direction are marvelous, delivering perfectly the inherent honesty and feeling in Todd Almond’s book, while Joe Goode’s beautifully understated choreography adds a fresh, youthful insouciance to the staging. But the story is a small one, not just a small town story, and its short, predictable arc makes for a slackness not altogether compensated for by the evocative tension between the lovers. (Avila)

John Gabriel Borkman Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $34-55. Tues and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 9. A former bank manager (James Carpenter) who did time for illegally speculating with customer accounts to the ruin of all now paces like a lone wolf (in the operative metaphor) in his upstairs study, planning a return to respectability, as his estranged wife (Karen Grassle) occupies the rooms below along with a testy housekeeper (Lizzie Calogero), where her sister (Karen Lewis) competes for the love and loyalty of the patriarch’s grown son (Aaron Wilton), who contrary to the designs of all his elders is determined to marry a charming widow (Pamela Gaye Walker) and "live," as he is compelled to reiterate. Ibsen’s play has an enduring topicality that is hard to miss of course, but Aurora’s production, directed by veteran hand Barbara Oliver, also inadvertently suggests why this leaden, slightly ridiculous work is so rarely produced, despite some solid acting, especially from an imposing yet slyly comical Carpenter in the title role. (Avila)

Oliver! Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $24-33. Fri, 7:30pm; Sat, 2 and 7pm; Sun, 1 and 6pm. Through May 16. Berkeley Playhouse performs the Dickens-based musical.

To Kill a Mockingbird Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $27-62. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 9. TheatreWorks performs Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s literary masterpiece.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Bombshell Betty’s Burlesque Bailout" Glas Kat, 520 Fourth St; 495-6620. Wed, 8pm, $10. Burlesque, dance, comedy, and more to raise money for Bay Area performers hit hard by the economic crisis.

"City Solo" Off-Market Theaters, 965 Mission; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sun, 7pm. Through May 23. $15. This showcase features works by Monica Bhatnagar, Susan Ito, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Sarah Weidman, and Nicole Maxali.

"Columbia Chasing" Garage, 975 Howard, SF; 518-1517. May 4-5, 8pm, $10-20. Dance Ceres performs a work-in-progress.

"Men Think They Are Smarter Than Grass" Project Artaud Theater, 450 Florida; 267-7687. Fri-Sat and May 6, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 9. $20-25. Deborah Slater Dance Theaer performs a world premiere.

"Queerification" Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission; www.therhino.org. Sun, 3. Donations accepted. Theatre Rhinoceros and Grooviness Productions present this afternoon of "playlets and musings in progress" by Mercilee Jenkins and Jerry Metzker.

"Toe to Toe: The Grand Slam" Herbst Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna; www.slimstickets.com. Thurs, 6:30pm. $25-125. Dancers from ODC/Dance and student athletes from UC Berkeley engage in a series of physical challenges to raise money for ODC Dance Commons and Cal Athletics.

Events listings

David Talbot
-
0

Event Listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 28

Phases Full Moon Celebration McLaren Park, 2100 Sunnydale, SF; (415) 468-9664. 8pm, free. Join in on this celebration of the passing of the Moon Phases with people from different spiritual traditions and walks of life featuring dancing, drumming, singing, readings, performances, and more.

FRIDAY 30

Journalism Innovations University of San Francisco, Fromm Hall, Golden Gate at Parker, SF; (415) 738-4975. Fri. 1pm-7:30pm, Sat. 8:30am-7:30pm, Sun. 9am-12:30pm; $15-$75 sliding scale. Join over 600 journalists, educators, advocates, and citizens for this conference on shaping the future of journalism featuring workshops, expositions, and showcases of new projects, practices, and ideas. Presented by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Nor Cal.

Poems Under the Dome North Light Court, San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett, SF; www.poemdome.com. 5:30pm, free. Celebrate the last day of National Poetry Month by reading a poem of your choosing at City Hall. Space is limited, so readers are selected by lottery and limited to three minutes per poem. Readings will begin with a poem by Maxine Chernoff.

BAY AREA

"Are We Alone?" UC Berkeley, Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center, Hearst at LeRoy, Berk.; (510) 642-8678. 7:30pm, free. Attend this debate where Dan Werthimer, UC Berkeley SETI Program Director, and Geoff Marcy, Professor, UC Berkeley Astronomy Department, will present convincing arguments both for and against the existence of technological life elsewhere in the galaxy. Either the Milky Way is teeming with life or it isn’t; decide who’s right.

SATURDAY 1

May Day Dolores Park, 18th St. at Dolores, SF; www.uainthebay.org. 3pm, free. Celebrate May Day with the anti-authoritarian community at this family friendly event featuring food, drink, activities, speeches, reenactments, and information tables from organizations like Bound Together Books, Homes Not Jails, Indybay, International Workers of the World (IWW), and many more.

National Free Comic Book Day Comic book stores throughout the Bay Area, visit freecomicbookday.com for a list of stores near you. All day, free. Special edition comics from top publishers, like Marvel and DC, will be given away all day. Participating stores include Isotope, Jeffery’s Toys, Caffeinated Comics, Japantown Collectibles, Neon Monster, Comix Experience, and more.

Roots and Culture Shelton Theater, Pier 26, The Embarcadero, SF; (415) 665-8855. 8pm, $2-20 sliding scale. Attend this May Day event that promises to shake loose all the dampness from the rain and economic struggles featuring COPUS, a spoken word, bass, and percussion ensemble, and Heartical Roots, a song-writing collaborative including bass, drums, keyboards, guitar, and Nyahbinghi drums.

Russian Hill Stairways Meet at Hyde and Filbert, SF; www.sfcityguides.org. 10am, free. Learn more about San Francisco history, architecture, legends, and lore on this SF City Guides walking tour featuring magic staircases, gardens, views from 345 feet above the Bay, and stories about the former haunts of writers and artists.

Spring Plant Sale SF County Fair Building, San Francisco Botanical Garden, Strybing Arboretum, Golden Gate Park, 9th Ave. at Lincoln, SF; (415) 661-1316. 10am-2pm, free. Learn about and purchase rare and unusual plants not found at other regional plant stores at this giant sale featuring over 4,000 different kinds of plants, plant related books, treasures, garden gifts, and more.

SUNDAY 2

Art in the Alley Kerouac Alley, Columbus and Broadway, SF; (415) 362-3370. Noon – 6pm, free. Attend this open air art gallery, where over 25 emerging and established artists will showcase their work, including painting, printmaking, glass art, books, photography, jewelry, and more, and celebrate this fabled neighborhood and its artistic roots.

Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon Race begins and ends at Marina Green, Marina at Fillmore, SF; www.escapefromalcatraztriathlon.com. 8am, free. Watch as more than 2,000 amateur and professional athletes compete in a 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, followed by an 18 mile bike ride out to the Great Highway through the Golden Gate Park, and concluding with an 8 mile run through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The finish is at The Marina Green.

BAY AREA

Go Expo Day Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Suite 290, Pacific Renaissance Plaza, 388 9th St., Oak.; (510) 501-2701. 1pm, free. Learn about the game "Go," which originated in 4,000 years ago in China. Get free lessons, participate in game sets, and get instructional booklets so that you too can one day compete for some big prizes.

Women Entrepreneurs Showcase David Brower Centre, main lobby, 2150 Allston, Berk.; (510) 809-0900. 10:30am, $4 includes light lunch and raffle ticket. Show your support for local, women-owned businesses of all types, listen to live music, and enjoy some food samples.

TUESDAY 4

Beers, Brats, and Bikes Gestalt Haus, 3159 16th St., SF; www.gestaltsf.com. 7pm, $1 suggested donation. Drink beer, eat delicious sausages (veggie options available and also delicious), and commune with other bike lovers at this fundraiser for Hazon, a non profit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable food.

Music listings

David Talbot
-
0

Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and 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 at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*Aesop, Venture Capitalists, New Humans Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Fix My Head, This Runs on Blood, Useless Children, Gain to Lose Sub-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF; www.sf-submission.com. 9pm, $6.

*"Full Pink Moon Party" Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10. With Sonya Cotton, Honeycomb, Jascha vs. Jascha, and Kris Gruen.

Japanther, Reaction, Dirty Marquee, Street Eaters Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Pomegranate, Fall Risk, Control-R Hotel Utah. 8:30pm, $6.

Chad Price, Michael Dean Damron, Micah Schabnel, Piss Pissdofferson Thee Parkside. 8:30pm, $5.

Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, Funk Revival Orchestra Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Volker Strifler Band Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Anoushka Shankar Palace of Fine Arts Theater, 3301 Lyon, SF; (415) 563-6504. 8pm, $25-$65.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Club Shutter Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Goth with DJs Omar, Nako, and Justin.

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

Machine Sloane, 1525 Mission, SF; (415) 621-7007. 10pm, free. Warm beats for happy feet with DJs Sergio, Conor, and André Lucero.

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.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

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.

Telephoned Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; www.harlotsf.com. 7pm. Mash-ups with DJ Sammy Bananas and singer Maggie Horn.

Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJ Carlos Mena and guests spinning afro-deep-global-soulful-broken-techhouse.

THURSDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Aquaserge, Casper and the Cookies, Grand Lake Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Arcadio, Guns for San Sebastian, Charles Gonzalez Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

C-Mon and Kypski, Frequency, Sweet Snacks, DJ Mancub Independent. 9pm, $12.

A Day to Remember, August Burns Red, Silverstein, Enter Shikari, Go Radio Regency Ballroom. 6:45pm, $23.

Dunes El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Shane Dwight Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $20.

Flood, Hashishian, Days of High Adventure Knockout. 10pm, $6.

49 Special, Big Nasty, TV Mike and the Scarecrowes Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Emily McLean, Quinn DeVeaux, Street Sirens Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $8.

Murs, Sick Jacken Fillmore. 8pm, $20.

Photo Atlas, Moog, Smile Radio Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Spill Canvas, Tyler Hilton, AM Taxi, New Politics Slim’s. 7:30pm, $16.

Sugar and Gold, Nite Jewel, Baron Von Luxxury, DJ Loose Shus Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Sugar Butt Tiger, Bare Wires, Girl Band, MC Meathook and the Vital Organs, SF Rockstar Paradise Lounge. 9pm, $7. Proceeds benefit the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair.

Emily Jane White, Helene Renault, Chloe Makes Music Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass and old-time jam Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Jordan Carp Bollyhood Café. 8pm, free.

Jon Rubin with Cal Keaoola Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St., SF; (415) 826-6200. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8-10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz mark their night’s third anniversary with a live performance by Aphrodesia.

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.

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

Good Foot Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. A James Brown tribute with resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, and Prince Aries spinning R&B, Hip hop, funk, and soul.

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

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.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

FRIDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Aunt Kizzy’z Boyz Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

David Baron, Dan Vickrey, Blackstone Heist, American Studies Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Clipd Beaks, Sightings, Bill Orcutt Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Flexx Bronco, My Revolver, Bourbon Saints, Electric Sister Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

JFP, Cnote, Mack Misstress El Rio. 10pm, $5.

Kapakahi, Dogman Joe, Stranger Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Lemonade, Solid Gold, Active Child, DJ Aaron Axelsen Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10.

Lord T. and Eloise, Tenderloins, Hottub DJ Set Independent. 9pm, $14.

Ponys, Disappears, Spencey Dude and the Doodles Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Rogue Wave, Man/Miracle Fillmore. 9pm, $19.50.

Joe Rut Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $14. With comedian Will Franken.

Shpongle, ADHK, Hallucinogen LIVE Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $30.

Shayna Steele Coda. 10pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

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

Chano Dominguez Flamenco Jazz Quartet featuring Tomasito Palace of Fine Arts Theare, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-60.

Dan Zemelmen Quartet with Kenny Washington Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Fred Frith and Theresa Wong Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 8pm, $10.

Kenny Lattimore Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $38.

"A Night at Birdland" Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025. 9pm. With the MegaFlame Blue Band.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Eek-a-mouse Rock-it Room. 10pm, $22. With the Holdup and DJ Mr. E.

Lava, Mestizo, Carmen Milagro Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Melees Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Stairwell Sisters Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8-10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz mark their night’s third anniversary with Chico Mann and guest DJ Similak Chyld.

Area Codes Element Lounge. 10pm, $10. With DJs Platurn, Doc Fu, and White Mike spinning Bay Area hip hop.

Blow Up Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10. With rotating DJs.

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.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

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.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Meat Vs. Death Guild DNA Lounge. 8:30pm, $4-8. Industrial, gothic, EBM, and more with Decay, BaconMonkey, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

Quantic Mighty. 10pm, $12. With Disco Shawn and DJ Sake 1.

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.

Suite Jesus 111 Minna. 9pm, $20. Beats, dancehall, reggae and local art.

Teenage Dance Craze Party Knockout. 10pm, $3. With DJ Sergio Iglesias, Russell Quann, and dX the Funky Gran Paw.

SATURDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*AC/Dshe, Total B.S., Honeydust Slim’s. 9pm, $14.

Antlers, Phantogram Independent. 9pm, $14.

Mike Beck and the Bohemian Saints Riptide. 9pm, free.

Broken Social Scene Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Grand National, Bonafide, General Jones Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

JC Smith Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16.

*Laudanum, Worm Ouroboros, Dispirit Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Maus Haus, Rafter, White Cloud Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Outernational Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Plushgun, Music for Animals, Fake Your Own Death, Marissa Guzman Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $15.

Warren Teagarden, Collisionville, Charmless Kimo’s. 9pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 3 and 8pm, $5-25.

Kenny Lattimore Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $38.

Marlena Teich Quintet Savanna Jazz. 8pm.

Sanctuary Trio featuring Peter Apfelbaum and guests Coda. 10pm, $10.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Boyd and Wain Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Evangenitals El Rio. 11:30pm, $7.

Gold Live Rockit Room. 9pm, $15. With Ce’Cile, Daddy Rolo, Empress I-Lexis, Danneekah.

Sour Mash Hug Band, Four Inch Pony, Janay Rose Mercury Café, 201 Octavia, SF; (415) 252-7855. 7pm, $5.

Red Hot Chachkas Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15.

Brazil Vox Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Dead After Dark Knockout. 6-9pm, free. With DJ Touchy Feely.

Debaser Knockout. 9pm, $5. Alt-rock hits from the 90s with DJ Jamie Jams and Emdee of Club Neon.

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.

Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests.

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 DNA Lounge. 9pm, $7-12. Erasure tribute with Skip and Shindog and Andy T.

Rebel Girl Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5. "Electroindierockhiphop" and 80s dance party for dykes, bois, femmes, and queers with DJ China G and guests.

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

So Special Club Six. 9pm, $5. DJ Dans One and guests spinning dancehall, reggae, classics, and remixes.

Social Club Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm. Shake your money maker with DJs Lee Decker and Luke Fry.

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.

SUNDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Eluvium, Benoit Pioulard Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Nymph, Three Leafs, Woom Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Shootin’ Lucy, Neutralboy, Steel Tigers of Death, Gunner Kimo’s. 5:30pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Kenny Lattimore Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5pm, $5-38.

Raul Midon Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-55.

Ray Obiedo and the Urban Latin Jazz Project Coda. 8pm, $10.

*Kronos Quartet Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.performances.org. 11am, $8-15.

Rent Romus and the Emergency String Ensemble, Noertker’s Moxie Chamber Ensemble Musicians Union Hall, 116 Ninth, SF; www.noertker.com. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Damon and the Heathens, Graves Brothers Deluxe, Doc Holler Amnesia. 8:30pm, $7.

"Wanderlust at the Fillmore" Fillmore. 8pm, $25. With Rupa and the April Fishes, MC Yogi, and DJ Dragonfly.

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 Vinnie Esparza and guest Spliff Skankin’.

FlashDance SF Glas Kat, 520 4th St., SF; www.flashdancesf.com. 6pm, $25.

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?

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

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

Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.

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

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

MONDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

"Felonious Presents Live City Revue" Coda. 9pm, $7.

Futurecop, Keith Masters Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Green River Ordinance, Matt Hires, Angel Taylor Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Garrison Starr, Joey Ryan, Cate Le Bon Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

AaronandJane Rockit Room. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJs El Kool Kyle and Santero spinning Latin music.

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

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

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.

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

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.

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

TUESDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Heartless Bastards, Hacienda, Amy Cook Independent. 8pm, $18.

*Lupe Fiasco, B.o.B. Warfield. 8pm, $40.

MC Frontalot, Brandon Patton, Edible Norris Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Mantles, Dimmer, Weekend Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Mudface, Great American Beast, Motogruv Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Needtobreathe, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, Seabird Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $19.
Rangers, Jon Porras, Radiant Husk, Centipede Eest Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Title Tracks, New Trust, Bye Bye Blackbirds Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.
Zweng, Frisky Disco, Parachute Musical, Winter Sounds Thee Parkside. 8pm, $6.
DANCE CLUBS
Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs What’s His Fuck, Taypoleon, and Mackiveli.
Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.
La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.
Mixology Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; (415) 441-2922. 10pm, $2. DJ Frantik mixes with the science and art of music all night.
Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.
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.

Alerts

David Talbot
-
0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28

SF Hep B Free


Attend this kick-off rally for a new hepatitis B ad campaign. The campaign addresses recent federal data confirming that SF has the highest rate of liver cancer in the country, primarily due to the high rate of hepatitis B among Asian Americans. Fiona Ma, Dr. Edward Chow, Ted Fang, and others will be speaking.

5:30 p.m., free

Togonon Gallery

77 Geary, 2nd floor, SF

www.sfhepbfree.org

Workers Memorial Day


Commemorate workers killed on the job and defend injured workers at this protest to reactivate the labor movement, protect the lives and safety of workers in the workplace, and demand healthcare and justice for all.

7 p.m., free

ILWU Local 34

801 2nd St., SF

www.workersmemorialday.org

THURSDAY, APRIL 29

Support SFBG’s slate card


Show your support for the Guardian’s June 2010 slate of endorsed candidates for the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) at this fundraiser featuring live music by the Valerie Orth Band and Lumaya, DJs Smoove and Kramer, a performance by Fou Fou Ha, and more. Although the Guardian is not directly affiliated with this event, proceeds go to a Guardian slate card mailer prepared and distributed by the candidates.

7 p.m., $20–$100 suggested donation

CELLspace

2050 Bryant, SF

alixro@yahoo.com

Oakland teachers strike


Join the picket lines at your Oakland neighborhood public school to protest the district’s top-heavy administration, over-reliance on private contracts, and continued cuts to essential programs.

6 a.m. protest at a school near you

11 a.m. march and rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza

14th at Broadway, Oakl.

Oaklandteachers.wordpress.com

FRIDAY, APRIL 30

Project Homeless Connect


Celebrate Arbor Day by taking part in the groundbreaking of a new fruit tree orchard at Project Homeless Connect’s Growing Home Community Garden, a project that aims to provide an ongoing source of fresh fruit for San Francisco’s homeless community.

1 p.m., free

Project Homeless Connect

Octavia between Page and Oak, SF

RSVP to (858) 523-9020 or (510) 601-4211

SATURDAY, MAY 1

International Workers’ Day


This march and rally will demand full rights for undocumented workers; money for jobs and education not war and occupation; and no more budget cuts or fee hikes that are just taxes on the poor. Sponsored by the May Day 2010 Coalition and the ANSWER Coalition.

Noon, free

24th St. and Mission, SF

answersf.org

TUESDAY, MAY 4

HIREvent


Find out about job opportunities in accounting, education, management, public safety, customer service, sales, technology, law administration, and more at this job fair featuring resume recommendations and employers ready to hire.

11 a.m., free

Hotel Whitcomb

1231 Market, SF

1-888-THE JOBS

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 255-8762; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Welcome to Elm Street: Part Three

Sue Vaughan
-
0
Welcome to Elm Street: Part Three

In honor(?) of the new A Nightmare on Elm Street, we’re recapping all of the Elms so far. Find more on the Pixel Vision blog.

“Live together, die alone.” I stole that line from Lost, but it sums up A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) all too well. The remaining Elm Street kids — you know, the ones whose parents enacted mob justice on Fred Krueger — find themselves locked in a psych ward. They’re not really crazy: they’re just having bad dreams. But these teens are (mostly) smarter than their predecessors, and they refuse to go down without a fight. The “dream warriors” pick up on two important facts: there’s safety in numbers, and you can do awesome shit when you’re dreaming. I believe The Simpsons’ Ralph Wiggum said it best: “Sleep! That’s where I’m a Viking.”
No Vikings in this bunch, sadly, but these kids do have pretty nifty powers and thus a fighting chance against Freddy. In case you’re planning on assembling your own team of dream warriors — and honestly, it’s not a bad idea — I thought I’d break down the pros and cons of part three’s heroes. Yes, most of them end up dead and those that don’t (spoiler alert) are offed in part four. But hey, it’s good to know what skills to look for and what faults to avoid when you’re trying to save your ass.

Presenting the dream warriors, in the order in which they bite it.

Phillip (Bradley Gregg)
Pros: Bitchin’ ‘80s hair.
Cons: Sleepwalker. First to die, with the most disturbing death scene by far. He really doesn’t have a lot going for him.

Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow)
Pros: Has a (somewhat painful) system for staying awake. Burning oneself with cigarettes shows serious motivation.
Cons: Smoker. Thinks she’s going to be an actress — yeah, she’s one of those. And, of course, the second to die. “Welcome to prime time, bitch.”

Taryn (Jennifer Rubin)
Pros: Stands her ground. That means not putting out for skeezy orderlies. Gets the best line of the movie: “In my dreams, I’m beautiful. And bad.” Switchblades.
Cons: Attitude. Really needs to comb that hair. Pesky heroin addiction, which Freddy exploits with terrifying fingerneedles.

Will (Ira Heiden)
Pros: Nerdy charm. In his dreams, he can walk — not to mention be the Wizard Master. That’s right, he can blow up evil wheelchairs with green lightning (in the name of Lowrek, Prince of Elves).
Cons: Even as a wizard master, he’s still just a dweeb. And eventually, a dead one.

Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp)
Pros: She’s been here before. Check out that grey streak: it screams “survivor.” Prescription for Hypnocil. Won’t take getting killed lying down.
Cons: Lots of baggage. Dead friends, dead boyfriend, dead mom — rewatch the first Nightmare on Elm Street if you need a refresher. Kind of naïve, inevitably. You really thought ghost dad was legit?

Kristen (Patricia Arquette)
Pros: Good at art. Marvel at her popsicle stick recreation of Nancy’s house! Does flips. Can bring people into her dreams.
Cons: Can bring people into her dreams. Hey, that’s a bad thing when you’re trying to avoid getting murdered. Poor common sense. All the Freddy fan-art is asking for it, don’t you think?

Kincaid (Ken Sagoes)
Pros: Tells it like it is, which means more great lines: “Let’s go kick the motherfucker’s ass all over dream land!” “Yo, Freddy! Where you hidin’ at, you burnt-face pussy?” Also, dreams give him super strength!
Cons: Gets thrown in the quiet room a lot, so you know he’s bad news. Nasty habit of antagonizing Freddy Krueger.

Joey (Rodney Eastman)
Pros: Knows to wake up his friends when necessary. Dream scream can break mirrors and banish the boogeyman.
Cons: But mostly quiet. Too quiet. Ball of teenage hormones, which inspires him to follow the hot nurse from hell and get himself comatose.

Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson)
Pros: The only doctor who actually believes that his patients are being killed by Freddy Krueger. Master hypnotist. Sees dead people — or dead nuns, at least.
Cons: Not a teenager. Might we say he’s getting too old for this shit? Can’t even fight a skeleton.

So there you have it. Now you can — I’m so sorry for this — pick your own dream team. And if you’d like to recruit me as a dream warrior, you should know that I’ve seen countless horror movies and know how to survive relatively unscathed. On the other hand, I’m pee-my-pants frightened of Freddy, so let’s call it a draw.

Live Shots: Dance Mob Kick-Off for Bay Area National Dance Week, Union Square, 4/23/10

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0

Don’t be alarmed if you happen to feel the floors shaking throughout the next week. It’s not an earthquake, it’s the Bay Area National Dance Week , an amazing event offering tons of free dance through May 2nd.

As a kick-off to celebrate a week of booty-shaking and funky foot moves, several hundred dancers gathered in Union Square this Friday to perform one dance in unison, which they incorporated into pieces that each group choreographed on their own:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50fUbBsG3ek

The variety of dance styles ranged from hip-hop and belly dancing, to square dancing and even a few free-flowin’ dancers who joined in from the audience. There were 19 groups involved in the dance mob, which included high school students from all over the Bay Area, and several dance companies. If you’re new to dance, but fascinated by flamenco, or a long time dancer who wants to brush up on her salsa turns, this is the week for you. And even if you don’t want to physically join in the fun, there are lots of performances to take a peek at. So, get those dancing shoes on and shake things up a bit!

FEAST: 10 kick-ass brunches

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
2
FEAST: 10 kick-ass brunches

We here at the Guardian don’t survive on green buds and printer ink alone. We eat real food. Sometimes! But we do get up late and hungover. While we often forgo fancy brunch — unless we save our pennies for the amazing eggs-meet-legs “Sunday’s a Drag” buffet at Harry Denton’s (www.harrydenton.com) or dim sum nirvana at Yank Sing (www.yanksing.com) or Ton Kiang (www.tonkiang.net) — we’ll sure as shootin’ shell out for thrifty chilaquiles and bloody marys, especially the way the Bay makes ’em. Here are some of our dearest bleary-eyed, late-morning tummy fillers. (Marke B.)

 

BASHFUL BULL TOO

There are days when you wake up with a bladder full of Jameson’s and a fervent wish to sink into a salty, unglamorous world of egg and cheese. These are the mornings when bottomless mimosas and goat cheese frittatas sound like fightin’ words. Easy tiger, I got you — just slump into a booth at Bashful Bull Too, the most standard of Outer Sunset diners. There’s no live jazz band, no “scene” at all — just you and your greasy calories. Get down on their cheap plates of hash browns and bacon, or better yet, a burger. Slabs of ground beef are acceptable fare when, after all, you’re having breakfast at 2 p.m. (Caitlin Donohue)

3600 Taraval, SF. (415) 759-8112

 

BEAN BAG CAFÉ

In you’re from the Midwest, good brunch spots are distinguished by waitresses who call you “hon” and have your coffee waiting for you before you sit down. Become a regular at Bean Bag Café in the Western Addition, and they’ll do all that and more. Bean Bag’s extensive breakfast and lunch menu and progressive cooking staff means never having to decide if it’s too late for Goldilocks oatmeal (yep, it’s just right) or too early for pancakes and beer. Speaking of pancakes, the Bean Bag buttermilk, customized with bananas and caramelized walnuts on top, is a must-have. Pair it with scrambled eggs drenched in Tabasco, and you’re set until 3 p.m., when Bean Bag kicks off its happy hour with beer for $1.75. Other highlights: sunshine and a petting zoo of scruffy but wuvable dogs outside. (Diane Sussman)

601 Divisadero, SF. (415)-563-3634

 

CAFE DU SOLEIL

Lower Haight — known for its nicoise? C’est vrai! The salad nicoise at Cafe Du Soleil is a stunner, bursting with tender tuna, piquant greens, and enough fresh fixings to ensure some inner sunshine. But don’t stop there — or at the pastry case in front, with delectable goodies like croques madames and hazelnut chocolate croissants. Soleil’s salmon tortilla, a sort of deconstructed-quiche pyramid topped with lovely lox and drizzled with smoky romesco, is this laidback Parisian hang’s brunchtime piece de resistance. Bonus: hunky scruffsters and tattooed ladies. (Marke B.)

200 Fillmore, SF. (415) 934-8637. www.soleilsf.com

 

CHLOE’S

Let’s face it, one aspect of brunch — at least on a Sunday — is the wait. Chloe’s is no exception. The restaurant’s rep and tiny size mean that while weekdays are fine, on the weekend you will be waiting in a (loose) line. The upside is that Chloe’s is on a quiet corner of Church Street, so on a sunlit day, you’ll get fresh air and nothing noisier or more imposing than the people-watching pleasure of the J-Church sliding by. Once inside, indulge your sweet tooth: two highlights of the low-key menu are french toast made with croissants (served with strawberries and powdered sugar) and banana walnut pancakes, a Chloe’s specialty. Chloe’s offers some pleasant, simple variations on scrambled eggs, and the fresh fruit and white rosemary toast to compliment them. This may be Noe Valley, but the coffee is Twin Peaks good. (Johnny Ray Huston)

1399 Church, SF. (415) 648-4116

 

CHOW

The agony of brunch, since it allows for judgment-free consumption of lunch dishes or breakfast dishes, means having to choose between savory or sweet, sandwich or omelet, salad or hash browns. Ten minutes alone can be devoted to the age-old question of pancake or eggs benedict? Coffee or cocktail? Pancake or … This is where Chow ends the cycle of neurosis. At Chow, you can order one egg benedict and one pancake, accompanied by one cup of coffee and one wine mojito. Plus, Chow has two pancakes without peer: the blueberry with warm blueberry sauce and mascarpone cheese, and Marion’s ricotta pancake with lemon. Get one of each! Of course, if you want the chilaquiles or a cheesy scramble, Chow will happily oblige. Watch them start to emit a soft, warm glow when paired with a blushing bellini. (Diane Sussman)

212 Church and 1245 Ninth Ave. 415-552-2469; 415-665-9912, www.chowfoodbar.com

 

HOMEMADE CAFÉ

It’s Saturday morning-slipping-toward-noon, and there are few reasons to expend the effort to pick your fuzzball head up off the pillow it dropped onto in the after-party wee hours. Curled in your cocoon, there is but one comforting thought: breakfast! Few places can revive the soul and satisfy the belly as proficiently as Homemade Café. You’d be wise to choose the spinach, mushroom, and feta omelet. Sweet or spicy is a tough choice, though, since there are spectacularly fluffy blueberry pancakes to be had as well. It’s crucial that you remember this magical phrase: “Upgrade to Home-Fry Heaven.” They’ll arrive smothered in cheese, salsa, sour cream, and a choice of guacamole or pesto. You will feel alive again — at least until naptime. (Rebecca Bowe)

2454 Sacramento, Berk. (510) 845-1940

 

LIME

I love Lime. Not just because it offers a pretty good assortment of belly-filling foodstuffs on Sunday mornings or the hip and lively atmosphere — but because of the bottomless mimosas and bloody marys. Now, I could try to compare Lime’s eggs benedict to others I’ve eaten, but why bother? There are bottomless fucking mimosas and bloody marys, people! Who cares about the food when I can get stupid drunk with my friends at 11 a.m.? In fact, I can’t recall a time when we weren’t asked to leave, albeit very nicely by the wait staff. Just be careful, those drinks will knock you on your ass and give you a hangover by 4 p.m. Guaranteed. (Ben Hopfer)

2247 Market St., SF. 415.621.5256, www.lime-sf.com

 

LYNN & LU’S ESCAPADE CAFE

Lynn and Lu, I heart you. Snag a quaint table under an umbrella on Grand Avenue or find a spot on the back patio for a beautiful sunny brunch. The morning portions are fat, happy, and classic. Three-egg omelets come bursting with your filler of choice and arrive sitting next to a pile of yummy roasted potatoes. Those with stomachs bigger than their eyes will be relieved to see that the Escapade frittatas look more like a crowd-pleasing tower of peppers, veggies, and eggs than a paltry single serving — everyone will waddle away with a smile. The service is fabulous, the price is just right, and the food comes quick enough to whisk away any dream-soaked cobwebs. (Amber Schadewald)

3353 Grand Ave, Oakland, 510-835-5705

 

MAMA’S ROYAL CAFÉ

Imagine a John Waters time warp with rickety counter chairs, a napkin art gallery, and a suggestive painting of female softball players with a giant bat, and you’ve just about captured the quirkiness of Mama’s Royal Café. The home fries, hollandaise dishes, and rib-sticking omelets are consistently satisfying, but weekly specials also offer seasonal and delicious treats like lemon-ricotta pancakes with blood orange curd. The wait staff often serves on hipster time, which, quite frankly, works out perfectly since Mama’s is best enjoyed with friends on a lazy Sunday as you discuss, or help each other remember, last night’s misadventures. (Robyn Johnson)

4012 Broadway, Oakland. (510) 547-7600. www.mamasroyalcafeoakland.com

 

STACKS

After a recent multihour hike around the Presidio, I found myself ravenous. You know the feeling — fully prepared to combine breakfast, lunch, dinner, a multitude of snacks, and dessert into a single meal. Where better to do that than at Stacks, the San Francisco location of a mini-chain (others are in Menlo Park and Burlingame) that looks like a Denny’s that got an upscale makeover, with some of the biggest floral arrangements you’ll ever see. Speaking of gigantic, Stacks’ portions are robust, and their menu is a monster: over a dozen omelet choices; copious varieties of pancakes, crepes, and waffles; sandwiches and burgers; daily specials; and at least seven different smoothies. (Cheryl Eddy)

501 Hayes, SF. (415) 241-9011. www.stacksrestaurant.com

 

TAQUERIA LOS COYOTES

Being on a tight budget has forced me to get creative, and this underdog taqueria located on a block full of distracting alternatives has become my favorite spot for a weekend breakfast burrito. There are never any lines, the food is as cheap as it comes, and the egg and chorizo burrito with beans, cheese, and rice is guaranteed to soak up a whole weekend of leftover mischief hanging. It’s even big enough to share with any co-conspirators still hanging out as well. (Paula Connelly)

3036 16th St., SF. (415) 861-3708. www.taquerialoscoyotes.com

 

ZAZIE

Yes, there’ll be a wait — but it’s more than worth it at Zazie, a French bistro that is San Francisco’s best patio brunch spot. The heart of the menu resides in the poached egg dishes (my favorite is La Mer, with real Dungeness crab, avocado, and green onion), seven to choose from, each with a choice of one, two, or three perfectly poached eggs, wonderfully tangy hollandaise sauce, and a side of potatoes fried up with, get this, roasted garlic cloves. Yum! Everything on the brunch menu is awesome, from challah french toast to scrambled eggs Fontainebleau to the full-on trout du sud. C’est magnifique! (Steven T. Jones)

941 Cole Street, SF. (415) 564-5332, www.zaziesf.com

Conan O’Brien is employed so the rest of us don’t have to be

Andrew Lam
-
6

Yuppies love jokes about homeless people.

Consider that a telling, if ancillary, lesson I learned at last night’s Conan O’Brien “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” tour, which continues tonight, Fri/23.

In the wake of O’Brien’s sacking from his late night gig at NBC earlier this year, the show marked a return to relevancy for the comedian. His comeback seemed to resonate with the younger, upper middle crowd at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, many of whom are no doubt fighting to maintain their own $79.50 comedy show lifestyle in the face of economic shittiness and uncertain employment.

Before we could see the man himself, we the audience were treated to a video showing an obese, bearded Conan from “a month ago” lolling about in sweatpants and pizza boxes as he waited for the phone to ring that would grant him a chance to spread his snark to the masses once more. No job = letting the dog lick peanut butter off your toes and sweatsuits. I looked around, and the buttoned down, well coiffed crowd around me was chuckling uncomfortably to themselves. Unemployed — and that beard! What a loser Conan was!

But the call comes, and we watch the birth of the 72 city “Legally Prohibited” tour. Barred from TV, radio, and the Internet until the fall (when his new TBS series begins, surely a come down for a man used to the bright lights of network television) by the terms of his contract with NBC, live performances are one of the only options open right now to O’Brien, whose career’s been light on the stand up without the sound stage up to this point.

+ beard + certain degree of world weary grizzle = Conan from last night’s show

His lack of live experience didn’t matter to the folks last night, though. They whooped it up as the man made his entrance onstage, re-energized in a sharp suit, his band behind him once more. The gut was gone, but the beard stayed, a rugged look that seemed to scream ‘this man has been through some shit!’

“We played San Francisco in 2007 in the Tenderloin, at the Orpheum,” O’Brien explains to us. “I had to get to the theater by canoeing through hobo urine!”

Haaaa! “That’s the show it’s going to be,” he tells us, as the crowd cheers his cheekiness. He tells us he can see “some guy in a top hat in the balcony” telling his wife, Mildred “it’s time to go.” Frumpy old people aside “your asses are mine tonight! You can’t change the channel,” he tells us. But no one’s leaving. The bland jokes, humorous musical numbers, and even an appearance from Chris Isaak (omg! He’s like, so cute!) keep the endorphins up and the bright, shiny crowd enthralled.

In crazy times, your late night show will always be there for you. Even if that interview didn’t go so hot, or you’re forced to give up the private parking space, you know your favorite TV host awaits to round out the day with some reassuringly belittling comments on pretty much every single person in popular culture. All the better if he’s cracking wise about the unemployment office and the steps of grieving that happen when you lose your job.

These days, that’s what we call relevant humor. Go get ‘em, Coco.

Conan O’Brien’s “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” tour

Fri/23  8 p.m., $39.50-79.50

Nob Hill Masonic Center

1111 California, SF

(415) 630-8496

www.teamcoco.com

The Daily Blurgh: Is that an Archie in your pants, Banksy?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
The Daily Blurgh: Is that an Archie in your pants, Banksy?

Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

Gay! Archie gets a gay (as opposed to “Archie is a gay,” a fantasy you can live out through this NSFW-ish Choose-Your-Own Adventure wiki). Lesbian lawyers defend “not gay enough” softball players. Texas doesn’t want to let gays divorce. And Jet Blue goes pink.

******

He’s not here: Banksy tags SF.

*****

“People are terrified of drugs. Drugs are linked to inner cities and crime – not mystical states. But with diligent and serious science, we can learn about all the wonderful ways that these compounds can help a stressed and troubled species.” Dropping therapeutic acid in San Jose.

******

Have you parked your keester in one of the city’s “parklets” yet? It’s lovely outside right now. Go! Editor’s recommendation: Totally hot biker parklet action at Mojo.

*****

If that constant hacking cough wasn’t enough of a warning about air pollution, you can always rely on your phone to tell you.

*****

“It refers to the sex act conducted in front of the Eucharist involving myself, as the role of Adam, and a female follower, who plays the role of Eve by her own free will. The Lord does not wish for anybody else to engage in this ritual. I was inspired to perform this ritual because I believed that there was no other way to prove Mr. Little Pebble’s innocence and the wrongful convictions of sexual assault made against him. Just a few days ago, God sent me a message saying that the woman who sued Mr. Little Pebble will confess that it was all a lie.” And there’s a whole lot more WTF where that came from.

*******

SFFD disaster drill mannequins: now more “P.C.” thanks to pants.

*****

Heads up: Remembering Playland, the full length documentary that tells the history of San Francisco’s famous 10-acre seaside amusement park, Playland at the Beach, starts a week-long run at the Balboa Theater tomorrow night.

Yann Martel brushes off the haters

Andrew Lam
-
0

Last night, Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi, and the new spectacularly panned follow up effort Beatrice and Virgil, took the stage at Kabuki Sundance Theater to speak with fellow writer Laura Fraser.

One can almost hear the semi colons when Martell speaks. “What makes life go well is not just external success; it’s how you feel about it.” It’s well and good that he seems relatively undisturbed by reviews of his work, because otherwise he might be a little ruffled these days; despite the phenomenal triumph of Life of Pi, the New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani heads up a long list of unimpressed critics, calling the new book “disappointing and often perverse.”

Seen onstage, Martel seems to be too engaged with philosophical conquesting to bog down in such matters.

An exotic biography (born in Spain!  Foreign service parents raised him in Costa Rica, France, and Mexico! Employed as a security guard and tree planter before coming to writing full time!) has left Martel with a desire to express the totality of human existence through the simplest narrative possible. All the better to communicate with the rest of the world, something which the author finds his “duty,” albeit a grand one. “It’s no easy fate,” to be endowed with such literary responsibility, he sighs.

Let’s leave aside, for a moment, the slings and arrows of outrageous book critics. What Martel took nine years to come up with in Beatrice and Virgil is what last night’s host Laura Fraser dubbed “meta fiction,” a Rubik’s cube of narrative not unlike Life of Pi’s structure. The book follows a writer who has become disenchanted by criticism from his editors; a character that Martel makes no bones about being a semi-autobiographical representation. The character finds inspiration renewed upon meeting a taxidermist, who needs help writing his own Beckett-like play starring personified characters based on his stuffed donkey and monkey friends that live in his shop. Oh, and the whole thing’s about the Holocaust.

It’s actually a less complicated version of what Martel had planned for the book at one point; a flipbook, “a book with two doors, but no exit,” which read one way would contain an essay about Holocaust lit, and the other, a fictional novel on the genocide.

Martel thinks it’s time to move past the strict rule that the Holocaust must be approached from a historical realist perspective because of the scope of the horror that occurred. By representing tragedy in a “non-literal, compact way,” he argues, the artist is able to create “art as suitcase: light, portable, [and] essential,” and speak to the emotional side of a tragedy where the voices of billions have been blurred into silence. Hence the donkey and monkey. He compares the need for these fictional characters to Orwell’s Animal Farm, Camus’ The Plague, and Picasso’s Guernica. One things for sure, Martel is a well read guy.

See we were totally there! Blurriness is the new artistic thing. Geez. Photo by Paula Connelly

It’s decadent really, the certain, bountifully nerdy joys involved with spending a Wednesday night watching onstage conversation with a book author. Respectful hushes. The discovery of exciting new vocabulary words. Audience opportunities to extrapolate theories of the meaning of titles and character names. Central among these pleasures, the chance to hear a person who has built their life on the solitude of reading and writing speak in front of a crowd. How do they do it, these authors? Masters of the written word, shouldn’t they be slobbering, anti-social messes at public speaking, at human relations in general?

But, scholarly as he may be, he’s well spoken, this Martel. He goes so far in his gregariousness, even, to engage with Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, having sent the head of state a book every two weeks for the past three years to instill in him a deeper appreciation for the arts and their import in the character and integrity of a guy that can run a country. He holds our Prez highly, noting that, in contrast to Stephen’s complete lack of response to the literary missives, Obama sent him a thank you note upon reading Life of Pi.

The whole thing’s mind boggling. A celebrity in the public eye, easeful and unworried in the face of professional turmoil enough to spend his moments onstage discussing why the leader of his country should read a Harlequin romance novel (a. the company is based out of Canada, b. they’ve sold 5.63 billion titles to date)? The man doesn’t appear to be worried. A solid endorsement of any current project, if ere I’ve seen one.

Pioneers! O Urban Pioneers!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Pioneers! O Urban Pioneers!

By Robyn Johnson

culture@sfbg.com

People are returning to land like it’s the 1970s all over again, but they’re not packing up for Vermont, letting their hair go au naturel, and unplugging from the grid to do it. Urban agriculture is sprouting up like, well, sprouts. And while we all feel strongly about sustainability and pay a lot of lip service to higher ideals, the majority of us probably aren’t willing to adopt the radical homemaker lifestyle and sacrifice cell phone coverage, The Colbert Report, or regular social interactions. The following cursory guide highlights a few urban farms in SF and immediate environs where you can volunteer or access food, as well as resources for cultivating your space in the concrete tangle (even if you live in a third-story apartment) and options for the time-honored tradition of gleaning.

 

MANY FARMHANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK

Community farms offer support not always available for the individual plots of community gardens (which typically have astronomically long wait-lists anyway), or even your own cramped Bay Area backyard. And for 60-hour-work-weekers, it might be taxing to grow more than a bit of basil or mold on that cheese in the back of the fridge. If you don’t have the time, energy, space, or inclination to follow famed urban farmer Novella Carpenter’s fantastic example (ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com), consider volunteering at the following places to satisfy your green thumb’s bidding.

As Chris Burley, the director of Hayes Valley Farm (www.hayesvalleyfarm.com) told me, “People are looking for a tangible way to get their hands dirty and address the impacts of our ecologically destructive, industrialized food system while doing something meaningful and connecting with their community.” And that’s exactly the goal that the farm, located off Laguna and Fell steets, has been aiming to fulfill since its inception as a way to revitalize an unused lot, once a freeway onramp, into a shared space.

Although the farm is still taking root, so to speak, the plan is to eventually grow enough fresh and organic food to feed the neediest nearby members plus the volunteers working to cultivate the space. Education also plays a major part in the function of the project, with Thursday and Sunday “work parties” where people can get that hand-dirtying experience, as well as regular classes on urban gardening and permaculture.

Altho Quesada Gardens Initiative (www.quesadagardens.org) primarily operates as a community-directed organization that seeks to strengthen the social systems of Bayview-Hunters Point, local food production has become one of the top concerns of the neighborhood. The resident-led nonprofit connects and maintain backyard farms and free food-producing community gardens throughout the area. In one of the neater facets of its food justice work, the group also helps maintain the kitchen garden of roving supper club Old Skool Café (www.oldskoolcafe.org), which employs at-risk or previously incarcerated youth. With such kick-ass people, it’s no wonder that urban farm hero Will Allen adopted one of the satellite gardens on his visit to the Bayview. Community volunteer meetings and gardening days tend to be informal, so e-mail for specific opportunities.

Sometimes the best things in life really are free. Located at Gough and Eddy on land kindly lent by the Lutheran Church, The Free Farm (www.thefreefarm.org) intends to give away 100 percent of its produce. Still in its initial development stages, the fledgling project welcomes volunteers every Saturday and Wednesday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. to help with the launch. Working in tandem with its sister organization, The Free Farm Stand in the Mission also offers fresh fruits and vegetables donated by other local urban farmers. Although places like Little City Gardens (www.littlecitygardens.com) and folks who glean from public land contribute, the bulk of the produce comes from the 18th Street and Rhode Island (www.18thandrhodeisland.org) farm maintained by the SF Permaculture Guild, which offers volunteer opportunities as well. With a goal to sextuple the farm’s output within the next five years, it could probably use a little bit more help. Work days are on Friday.

For West Oakland residents, two nonprofits have been power-housing to combat the food desert that plagues the area. City Slickers Farms (www.cityslickerfarms.org) operates several all volunteer-run farms throughout the neighborhood that could always use a few extra work hands. Collectively these six lots cultivate ducks and chickens, bee hives, veggies, fruit trees, and medicinal herbs, the produce of which are distributed through the Saturday Farm Stand on a sliding scale or work-trade basis — no one’s turned away. And if you still have a mighty urge for some composting, weeding, planting, and mulching, People’s Grocery (www.peoplesgrocery.org) runs three farms that constantly need tending. The 55st Street location tends fruit trees, culinary herbs, and vegetables; 59th Street is a slightly less cultivated space in collaboration with Berkeley’s Spiral Gardens Community Food Security Project (www.spiralgardens.org), which runs its own food garden off Oregon and Sacramento streets for you West Berkeleyites. People’s Grocery’s newest land acquisition, the plot behind the California Hotel off of 35th and Chestnut streets, hosts a greenhouse and a biointensive microfarm that replaced its 3.5 acre Sunol site last January.

 

HOME SWEET URBAN HOMESTEAD

If you have access to private land to cultivate, or even if you don’t, the following resources will set you on the path to food freedom. These classes, demonstration sites, and professional landscaping services will help you turn backyards, rooftops, and even windows into humming generators of small-scale urban agriculture.

Before you even think to take a shovel to your virgin backyard or start a worm bin, visit Garden for the Environment (www.gardenfortheenvironment.org). A one-acre demonstration garden in the heart of Golden Gate Heights that also teaches organic food production and sustainable landscaping with weekly workshops, you can see how it’s done before trial-and-erroring on that graywater irrigation system or chicken coop. The resource directory on its Web site also serves as an invaluable aid for at-home troubleshooting. Hotlines for gardening and composting issues, where to find recycled lumber, how to test your soil, manure suppliers, wasp removal companies — it’s all there.

DIY food production classes abound everywhere in the Bay Area but the one-stop shopper won’t find a better resource than the Institute of Urban Homesteading (www.iuhoakland.com) in Oakland. It offers a comprehensive curriculum ranging from beekeeping, butchery, goat farming, brewcraft, herbal medicine, bread making, fermentation, berry patches, and other topics of the same ilk. It’s a real crash course in manifesting your inner Laura Ingalls Wilder. With no central location, classes are taught in the teachers’ homes, which presents a neat opportunity to see real-time urban homesteading and the different ways people create sustainable places in an urban setting. Also consider Urban Kitchen SF (www.urbankitchensf.com) and BioFuel Oasis (www.biofueloasis.com) in Berkeley for supplementary courses.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and green behind the ears, several services will landscape your yard into a cornucopia of organic delectables and even continue the maintenance if you just can’t do anything with that black thumb of death. Star Apple Edible Gardens (www.starappleediblegardens.com) provides a range of services throughout the Bay Area, the simplest being consultations and composting tutorials. You also can order ready-made kitchen gardens or go whole kit and caboodle and have customized “garden design and installation, pathway and hardscape installation, irrigation design and installation, planting, plant feeding and cultivation, regular harvesting of your garden crops, and design, installation, and maintenance of composting systems.” Other similar businesses include All Edibles (www.alledibles.com), which specifically works with East Bay dwellers, and Chris Sein of Wildheart Gardens (www.wildheartgardens.com), who also consults on backyard chickens and mushrooms.

For a lot of us in the Bay Area, the dream of having a backyard is about as likely as Glenn Beck admitting that Obama is not a herald of an impending Orwellian dictatorship. So what can the more dispossessed among us do to return to the soil? Popular in Europe and becoming more so here, rooftop gardens are a great solution to space issues. Graze the Roof (www.grazetheroof.blogspot.com), the community vegetable patch on top of Glide Memorial Church, hosts rooftop gardening workshops. You can also gain experience by volunteering on work days every Thursday or first Saturdays. For those feeling less than philanthropic or sociable, pop over to your local bookstore to pick up the Use Your Roof Guidebook by Bay Area Localize (www.baylocalize.org). Seven bucks and four easy chapters gets you on your way to a more edible roof.

For balcony-less apartment dwellers, and maybe those with vaulted ceilings, window farms have become the new rooftop gardens. An open-source project that’s evolved over the past year, Windowfarms (www.windowfarms.org) gives how-tos for its innovatively cheap and space-conscious hydroponics system — jerry-rigged from repurposed plastic water bottles, tubing, and fish tank pumps that hangs in vertical columns in the window — as free PDFs on its Web site. It also hosts community boards where members share improvements to the system, which is constantly being updated. Alas, window farms can only really successfully raise leafy greens, but having a homegrown salad in a studio apartment is still pretty darn amazing.

If you already have your urban farm bustling along — or even just a prolific citrus tree — then yard-sharing is a great way to spread the fruit of your labor throughout the community. Neighborhood Fruit (www.neighborhoodfruit.com), SF Glean (www.sfglean.org), and Produce to the People (www.producetothepeople.org) will gladly help you to unload the excess bounty and distribute it to the hungry.

Reggie Watts is awesome, and I totally don’t get him

Andrew Lam
-
0

I’ve been a Reggie Watts aficionado for some time now — maybe since January. His video for “Fuck Shit Stack” was the most hilarious send up of hip hop culture I’ve seen in awhile, and one of the more visually creative videos. And I heard he was Seattle based, which got me very excited to see Pacific Northwest steez represented at his upcoming appearance at Conan O’Brien’s “The Legally Prohibited from Being on Television” tour stop, Thur/22 at the Nob Hill Masonic Center.

So I was stoked to get the chance to talk to the singer/beat boxer/comedian. Especially on 4/20. Interview dates don’t get much cooler. We’d straight kick it on the phone, giggle, talk about life, man. He says he’s in Seattle as we speak. What’s good in Northwest hip hop, Reggie?

“I haven’t lived in Seattle for over six years, and I’m not really a big hip hop guy,” says Watts. There is a medium sized pause as I mentally recalibrate, and feel out my new role as “reporter who doesn‘t get it.” Damn.

You’ll excuse me for being confused. Watts considers himself more of a comedic performer, but the majority of his work available online revolves around his prodigious musical talents that can be most readily understood in the language of hip hop. He’s been using a Line 6 DL4 delay box since the late nineties to concoct audio lasagnas of sound. And though the beats and bleats that come out of these largely improvised, layer cakes can borrow from retro commercial jingles and R&B hooks, the overwhelming impression they lay down is that of a super dope, low tech hip hop production.

I really like it. But, clearly, I don’t understand. So. Crap. But these things happen. What else can we talk about. Williamsburg? Blue Bottle coffee?

San Francisco Bay Guardian: How’s Brooklyn, Reggie?
Reggie Watts: Brooklyn’s cool. Really cool parties, great comedy scene. I live in Williamsburg, and there’s lots of photographers, visual artists, everything’s there.

SFBG: And really, you’re not into hip hop?
RW: I like the beats, but I don’t really follow it. It’s kind of like sports. Well no, because I don’t really like sports at all. I have friends that will play me stuff, but I don’t know a lot about it.

SFBG: (grasping, trying to salvage predetermined flow of interview) But… “Fuck Shit Stack”! Such incisive social commentary — you have such smart things to say about hip hop culture!
RW: I like real hip hop, that song to me is about that kind of stuff. There’s plenty of hip hop that’s more in the tradition of bohemian hip hop, poetic spoken style. I have a problem with the too cool, money money lifestyle. It’s been around for a long time.

SFBG: Can’t you say the same thing about all forms of music?
RW: I think more so now than any other time period. Communication and product placement, trying to sell things. The concept of money being given to people to perpetuate certain kinds of lifestyles. We see the direct effect in our hearts. When Nas came out with “Made you Look,” I was like oh shit, something’s going to happen, but it was kind of a one hit thing. I don’t mind materialism, as long as you use it creatively.

SFBG: Allright. So what will you listen to, left to your own devices?
RW: Techno, glitch, dub step. But I’m also really into… I don’t know, I enjoy the Carpenters, Seegar, Marvin Gaye — I pretty much really like everything. StereoLab I could listen to 24/7, Phoenix, I really like electronic music, ambient music.

SFBG: What are we going to see onstage at the show this week?
RW: 95% of what I do on stage is improvise, it’s up to the night and what’s going on. It’s usually me doing some really stupid shit for awhile, then I’ll do a song with the looping machine using really stupid lyrics. I’ll do a keyboard song, some more stupid bullshit.

SFBG: Are you excited to come to SF?
RW: Oh yeah, always a good time, I’ve got a lot of friends. And I’m excited for Blue Bottle coffee. We just got one in Brooklyn, I’m excited to see what it’s like out in SF.

SFBG: Oh yeah, we’ve got that Blue Bottle. It’s everywhere.
RW: It’ll fuck you up, in a good way.

Conan O’Brien’s “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” Tour feat. Reggie Watts

Thurs/22 8 p.m., $39.50-79.50

Nob Hill Masonic Center

1111 California, SF

(415) 776-4702

www.masonicauditorium.com

www.teamcoco.com

“The Loved Ones:” the complete interview!

Sue Vaughan
-
0
“The Loved Ones:” the complete interview!

Pegged by some as “Misery meets Pretty in Pink,” Sean Byrne’s instant horror mini-classic is by turns poignant, funny, grotesque, alarming, and finally very, very satisfying. It’s sure to be a hit again in the San Francisco International Film Festival‘s Late Show section. Between festival travels, Byrne was back home in Melbourne when he answered my email queries.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: The movie really throws you for a loop by spending the first stretch on serious psychological drama, then springing something entirely different.

Sean Byrne: Well, I needed [to establish] a hero who was uniquely qualified to survive hell. Someone who is conditioned to pain, who feels like they deserve to suffer. He’s a cutter or self-mutilator, someone who tries to block out emotional pain with physical pain. He’s a kid with a death wish who’s forced to endure a literal hell and in the process realizes he’s got everything to live for.

SFBG: Your central female character is more interesting than the usual horror movie villainness in that she’s so spoiled she thinks she’s a victim, which then excuses her behaving monstrously. Where did that come from?

SB: I was thinking about what could make a signature, iconic, highly marketable villain and I noticed how my five-year-old niece, along with almost every little girl, is obsessed with wearing pink. It’s part of the magic and fantasy stage of childhood, where they actually believe the Disney line “someday [my] prince will come.” So then I started thinking, well, what if our villain is a teenager with raging hormones but still somehow stuck in this spoiled, childish, pre-operational stage of development. I imagined “Princess” as a teenage version of that irritating kid in the supermarket who demands lollies and won’t stop screaming until she gets them!

SFBG: I like that her favorite song is self-pity anthem “Not Pretty Enough.” Has Kasey Chambers had any reaction to the film?

SB: I tried to stay within the horror genre but at the same time subvert the conventions, and having our troubled hero listen to heavy metal (the “devil’s music”) and our villain listen to a top-of-the-pops ballad like “Not Pretty Enough” was a way of doing that. As far as I know Kasey hasn’t seen the film. I’m dying to know how she’ll react.

SFBG: Did any particular films inspire you, in general or in making this film in particular?

SB: My filmic influences were a real mash up. Structurally the film is closest to Misery (1990) but tonally there are shades of Carrie (1976), Dazed and Confused (1993), Footloose (1984), The Terminator (1984), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974 original), The Evil Dead (1981), Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), [and the works of directors] David Lynch, Gaspar Noe, Michael Haneke, John Hughes, and even Walt Disney. The way Tarantino juxtaposes violence and comedy was a big influence. I’m also a huge David Fincher and P.T. Anderson fan. Audiences may recognize some of the influences but hopefully the film, as a whole, will be a fresh experience.

SFBG: A difference between this movie and those associated with “torture porn” is that here both victims and perps are pretty complicated characters.

SB: I hope so. I did my research and tried to get inside the heads of these characters before I started writing. Characters in horror movies are often one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. But really great ones like The Shining (1980), The Exorcist (1973), and Rosemary’s Baby (1968) delve into the psychology of the moment. They answer the question: how do ordinary people react to extraordinary situations honestly? They explore our base instincts with emotional authenticity.

I’ve made a horror movie, so I don’t want to sound hypocritical, but in my opinion movies that focus on the stalking bogeyman are actually kind of immoral because as an audience we’re almost forced to barrack for the killer. We know they won’t die (because there’s always a sequel) and we know nothing about the people being hunted and what makes them tick. So the main point of interest becomes, how much bare flesh am I going to see and how inventively gruesome is the next kill going to be? To me that’s not real horror. Real horror is having a relationship with the dark, extreme side of human nature and getting inside the cruelest of minds then genuinely caring about the people who are trapped in this terrifying web.

SFBG: The film really does dish out some horrifying abuse, though — did you ever pull back on how graphic it would be?

SB: No. Never. I’m not a fan of PG-13 horror. The middle ground is pretty boring — that’s why it’s called the middle ground. But we’re a balls-to-the wall pop-horror movie and as a fan growing up loving horror movies, I know what I like and I think I know what other true horror fans like, and we like to be pushed. Audiences go to horror movies to be scared. The brief is to freak them out so why hold back?

SFBG: Did anyone suggest you take out the whole comedy subplot involving the best friend’s dream date with the school’s goth chick? Although it works — both on its own and to provide some relief from the main action, which might be unbearable to watch without some interruption.

SB: The first draft of the screenplay was basically confined to the farmhouse, where most of the horror plays out, but it began to feel a bit suffocating. Like Misery, The Loved Ones is a kind of claustrophobic horror and also like Misery, which cuts to the sheriff and his wife for light relief, there are moments when the audience needs to take a breath, wipe their sweaty palms and maybe even have a nervous chuckle before preparing for the next white-knuckle onslaught.

SFBG: It’s a good thing your lead actress has already done some other, very different things, since otherwise she might be typecast forever as the horror-movie Girl from Hell.

SB: Yes, Robin McLeavy is an incredibly well-respected theater actress. She recently played Stella opposite Cate Blanchett’s Blanche in Liv Ullmann’s version of A Streetcar Named Desire, and won a Hayes Award for her performance, which is Washington’s answer to the Tonys.

SFBG: Upcoming projects? Have you gotten any overtures from major studios/producers?

SB: I’m writing a home invasion thriller with a unique twist, am attached to a medical thriller, which is a modern reworking of the Jekyll and Hyde story, and I’m in discussions with major studios and producers about a couple of other projects that I’d better keep quiet about for now.

The Loved Ones
San Francisco International Film Festival
May 2, 10:30 p.m., Castro, 429 Castro, SF
May 6, 3 p.m., Kabuki, 1881 Post, SF
www.sffs.org

Live on screen

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Live on screen

johnny@sfbg.com

SFIFF All those with curious minds, step right up, we have live cinema waiting for you in this dark room. The idea of “live” or performance-generated movies has taken on a new vitality recently via the light-projecting likes of Bruce McClure, whose ear-splitting and eye-blasting appearances in San Francisco usually sell out. On a smaller local level, Konrad Steiner’s neo-benshi programs have united local writers and a wide variety of filmic subject matter in creative and sometimes entertaining ways. At the San Francisco Film Festival, live music by bands for silent works has become a reliable main attraction. But Sam Green’s and Dave Cerf’s new meta-documentary Utopia in Four Movements adds a new facet to the phenomenon: instead of utilizing an over-familiar voice-over, it unites live narration by Green with a musical performance overseen by Cerf, allowing for degrees of spontaneity and change.

Utopian, isn’t it? At the Mission bar the Phone Booth on an early Monday evening, Green can’t help but tease out his thoughts on the very word. “To me, utopia is almost a metaphor for hope, or hope in the imagination,” he says, shortly after we’ve been flirted with (and flashed) by one fierce female patron. “It’s about trying to be hopeful these days, which is hard. Utopia is almost a way to make up hope. In some ways it’s so preposterous. The word even has negative connotations these days — people are told not to be utopian.” Half an hour later, he returns for another analogy or two: “Utopia is a thing that never really exists. It’s like a flower — it always wilts. Even if there’s a moment of great utopian energy, it can’t last.”

Utopia may not exist in fully realized forms, but the quartet of mutations in Utopia in Four Movements (five if you count the movie) fascinate as real-life fables. The first segment explores Esperanto, which was invented in the late 19th century with the aim of its becoming a universal, international language. As Green puts it, Esperanto is “a wonderful idea that can’t be,” an idea that he illustrates with short direct portraits of contemporary Esperanto speakers that, uncannily, takes on a colors-of-Benneton feel.

Esperanto has also yielded some memorable black-and-white cinema, namely a 1965 Esperanto horror film shot in Big Sur by Conrad Hall, which stars a pre-Star Trek William Shatner. San Francisco movie maniacs may recognize Incubus through the efforts of Will The Thrill and Other Cinema’s Craig Baldwin. “William Shatner wrote a memoir in which he talks about it,” Green says, before adding some information that reflects Utopia‘s ever-changing nature –and utopia’s pitfalls. “I’m trying to do an interview with him because he’s practically the most famous person to have spoken Esperanto. But the world’s most famous Esperanto person is probably [financier] George Soros.”

The idea of utopia isn’t new to Green, whose best-known feature The Weather Underground (2002) digs deep into the multi-faceted realm of ’60s radicalism, riding out its actions and repercussions. The second part of Utopia, set in Cuba, adds a new chapter to Green’s explorations of thorny political contradiction. Like Assata Shakur, the segment’s subject lives in Cuba as a fugitive. In the present, she’s engaged with Cuban hip-hop, but she remains tied to her past as a radical in America. “It’s about the last embers of revolution,” says Green.

One of Utopia‘s movements examines the potential of forensice science in a manner quite different from pro-law enforcement US true crime television, showing how the smallest reinforcement can be regained from sites of mass tragedy. But the movie’s sojourn in China is in some ways its most vivid. There, Green takes an extended trip to the world’s largest shopping mall, in China. The subject matter is akin to dramas such as Jem Cohen’s Chain and Jia Zhangke’s The World (both from 2004), but this is a case of reality trumping fiction. “Almost every article I read about China and capitalism talked about how the world’s largest mall was there now,” says Green. “But nobody described it as a total failure. We were at the mall for ten days, and it was soul-killing. There’s something about a gigantic failed mall that is profoundly depressing.” Luckily, an encounter with a Teletubby who eventually removed its mask added some life to the experience.

The world’s largest shopping mall — at least for now: Green says it is slated to be bulldozed — may be grim, but it’s also richly symbolic when history is integrated to the picture. “Victor Gruen who essentially invented the [shopping] mall in the US in the 1950s was a socialist who came to America,” Green says, as “This Monkey’s Gone to Heaven” gives way to “I Feel Love” on the Phone Booth jukebox. “In turn the mall has gone to China, and the grounds of cultural revolution became the site of a government-funded bust of a mall. In a way, it’s the trajectory of the 20th century.“

Today, we tiptoe into the 21st century, with a new president and old-new ways of seeing and making movies. “A year ago, when I was looking at [Utopia], people were saying ‘Aren’t you going to change everything because of Obama?’,” Green remarks. “It felt like cotton candy hope. When [U.S. presidents] are the limits of your possibility, it’s pretty lame.” Truth: Green may have used utopia in his title, but perhaps it’s time to come up with some fresh formulations of hope as well. *

UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS

Sun/25, 9:30 p.m., Kabuki

1...166167168...254Page 167 of 254

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