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Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 19

Day of action for free Muni passes for youth Balboa BART Station, 401 Geneva Ave, SF; www.peopleorganized.org. 1:30pm, free. POWER has been working for years to get free Muni passes for youth, but the fight is not over. Come help keep the pressure on in a campaign that aims to "shift local, regional, and national mass transit priorities towards the needs of working class communities of color and to bring an analysis of race, class, and gender to bear on transportation planning decisions," starting with free Muni for youth in San Francisco.

Norman Yee happy hour Rio Grande, 1108 Market, SF; www.tinyurl.com/kim4yee. 6pm, free. Connect with some politicians at this happy hour, which District 6 Sup. Jane Kim is throwing for District 7 candidate Norman Yee. Yee is currently on the school board and hopes to represent District 7, which spans from Judah in the north to Lake Merced.

THURSDAY 20

Speak-out and march for Derrick Gaines Arco gas station, 2300 Westborough Blvd., South San Francisco; Derrick Gaines was just 15 years old when he was killed on June 5, 2012 by an officer of the South San Francisco Police Department. Police approached Gaines and a friend, who they say were "looking suspicious." Police say Gaines ran away from them and drew a gun. Family and friends don’t buy it. They will meet at the site of Gaines’ death, the Arco gas station, in a continuing campaign to demand justice.

Icarus 10-year anniversary concert El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.theicarusproject.net. 6pm, $5-25. The Icarus Project is celebrating a decade of redefining mental illness by "navigating the space between brilliance and madness." Learn more about the Bay Area-born group in our story "Still Soaring" (9/12/12). Join them for live music, poetry, and an open mic.

SATURDAY 22

Out from the Wreckage Thrillhouse, 3422 Mission, SF; heatherwreckage.blogspot.com. "The collected, rejected, and recent works of punk artist Heather Wreckage." Her art has fueled revolutionary movements and counterculture at places like the Slingshot Collective, Occupy Oakland, and Hellarity House. Her zine, Dreams of Donuts, is on its 15th edition. Celebrate Wreckage with live music and zine bartering Saturday.

Third annual Castro nude-in Jane Warner Plaza, 17th and Castro, SF; nude-in.blogspot.com. Noon, free. It’s that time again. Come celebrate and defend the right of the Castro’s nude dudes and everyone who likes to be naked in public space. Of recent concern: cops unhappy with the public donning of cock rings. Decorated or not, nude-in organizers say, cocks should be able to fly free. So come support, nude or not- you can even dig up your Guardian butt guard from last year!

Self respect and community defense people’s forum Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, Oakl; peopleshearing.wordpress.com. 12pm, free. Registration is at noon with events at 1, 3, and 6pm in this all-day forum on self-defense in the face of racial profiling and violence. In the wake of a report from The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement that shows that "every 36 hours a black man, woman, or child is murdered by the police, private security guards, prison guards or vigilantes in the US," this forum will discuss the history and current state of racial profiling and violence and how to launch a movement of people protecting themselves and their communities.

SUNDAY 23

Effective Animal Advocacy 101 371 10th St., SF; www.tinyurl.com/veg101. 1pm, free. Farm Sanctuary works to help animals by spreading the word about going vegetarian or vegan. They launch their Compassionate Communities national tour in San Francisco Sunday. Join them for a vegan lunch and workshop on "Effective Animal Advocacy 101," and be sure to pick up some leaflets explaining the merits of "going veg."

MONDAY 24

Nonprofit workers’ victory party El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.tinyurl.com/seiunonprofit. 6pm, free. San Francisco nonprofit workers, represented by SEIU 1021, won a 2 percent increase in funding and prevented layoffs this year. Celebrate with the SEIU nonprofit division at El Rio, with DJ Carnita of Hard French.

The historic PG&E/clean energy vote today

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And so, after a Guardian campaign that started in 1969 to kick PG&E out of City Hall and bring the city’s own Hetch Hetchy public power to San Francisco residents and businesses, the San Francisco Chronicle reported  in Monday’s edition ( 9/17/2012)  that San Francisco “is on the threshold of taking a major step into the public power realm.”

The lead story by John Cote, under a big front page head “Clean power plan would skirt PG&E,”  nicely laid out the CleanPowerSF program and even said that the plan “would effectively break Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s decades-old monopoly on the consumer power market in its headquarters city.”

He quoted Sup. David Campos, sponsor of the legislation, as saying that “This is about giving consumers a choice. And for the choice to be meaningful, it can’t be dependent on one company deciding the energy future of this city.”  The plan goes before the board on Tuesday (9/18/2012) and public power advocates say they have the votes for passage, despite PG&E’s furious lobbying inside and outside City Hall.

What Cote didn’t say, and what the Chronicle has been blacking out for decades, is the crucial point that this clean energy/ public power plan is no ordinary vote on an ordinary issue.  It is an extraordinary vote that would  start the process to enforce the federal Raker Act of 1913 that mandates that San Francisco have a public power system because the city dammed Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park for its cheap public water and cheap public power.  The city got the cheap Hetch Hetchy water, but it never got the cheap Hetch Hetchy power because PG&E stole it and forced the city to buy PG&E’s expensive private power all these years. The cost: billions of dollars for decades to the taxpayers and enduring structural corruption at City Hall. The Guardian has called this PG&E/Raker Act scandal the biggest urban scandal in U.S. history. It still is.

It’s quite a story and I urge you to check out the hundreds of investigations, stories, editorials, cartoons, and graphics the Guardian has used for years to illuminate the scandal and fight to enforce  the Raker Ac t and bring our own Hetch Hetchy power to our own people in San Francisco.

Buried in the Cote story is a key political point: Mayor Ed Lee, the man who became interim mayor on a phony premise and then lied his way into a full term as mayor, reiterated his “concerns” through a spokesperson that he is, gosh, golly, gee, “concerned about the opt-out provisions, the risks associated with the contract and the cost to residents.”

Marvelous. Simply marvelous. Lee is once again enunciating the PG&E line that mayors before him, notably Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, have used to keep City Hall safe for PG&E and undercut the threat of public power coming to San Francisco and disturbing PG&E’s questionably legal monopoly. Brown, let me emphasize, was under PG&E’s thumb before, during, and after his mayoral tenure and now operates as an unregistered, $200,000-a -year PG&E lobbyist, Chronicle columnist, and key Lee confidant  and ally.

The current public power proposal isn’t as strong as the three public power initiatives that PG&E spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat.  PG&E would still own the lines and network, handle maintenance, and send out the bills.

But the proposal would provide l00 per cent renewable power to residents who want to pay a bit more for it, build a customer base and revenue stream for city-owned renewable power generation, advance the city’s greenhouse-gas reduction goals, and set aside $2 million to study public power options.  Most important, it would be a helluva good first step toward enforcing the public power provisions of the Raker Act and kicking PG&E out of City Hall.

The supervisors and Lee should approve the legislation and move it forward vigorously and without delay.

This is a historic moment and a historic vote in San Francisco history.  The question is, who is going to be on the right side of history and who is going to be on the wrong side of history with a PG&E vote that will live in infamy?  B3

P.S. A tip of the clean energy hat to Ed Harrington, who successfully wrestled  the proposal through the sea of crocodiles and hippos at City Hall.  He delayed his retirement as general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to finish up the proposal.  “This is the single biggest program that is even on the  horizon within the city and county of San Francisco to make any difference toward any of the goals that you have set as board members in terms of having a change in greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in San Francisco,” he told the supervisors’ budget committee last week as reported by Cote.  “This program can make a dramatic change.”  

And a tip of the clean energy hat to Sup. Campos, who put the proposal forward up against  fortress PG&E,  More: a tip of the clean energy hat and a  bow to all the many public power advocates who have fought for years to bring clean energy and public power out of the wilderness and to this position. Furthermore, I salute  Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who led the first  two public power initiative campaigns as the unpaid manager and then took on the herculean job of orchestrating the clean energy/cca proposal inside City Hall .when he became a supervisor. Mirkarimi is now paying the price for, among other things, successfully taking on PG&E and the PG&E establishment. His was an enormously courageous and important public service.  On guard,   B3

 

Heads Up: 8 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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Legends of doom, of ska, and of Latin jazz all make SF appearances this week: Yob, the Uptones, and Eddie Palmieri. And then there’s the indie rock wizard crew, Wilco, which is bringing out fellow legends Cibo Matto and the irreverent Jonathan Richman for its one-two punch of Bay Area shows.

Of course, there are other kinds of icons, there are future-greats in the making (Ringo Deathstarr and Holograms) and events bound to create lasting memories (Bay for the Bayou Benefit) glittered up with even more prestige via Allen Toussaint.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Ringo Deathstarr
Ringo Deathstarr has it all: the rampant My Bloody Valentine comparisons, the supercute girl with bangs, the supercute boys in tight pants, the best band name ever (psh, Pitchfork incorrectly dubbed them “absurdly named fuzz-rockers”), and the musical chops to back it all up. The Austin, Texas trio also seems like fun to hang out with; invite them for a beer after the show to celebrate their newest release, Mauve (which drops Sept. 24 on Sonic Unyon Records).
With Permanent Collection, Chasms
Wed/19, 9pm, $7
Milk Bar
1840 Haight, SF
(415) 387-6455
www.milksf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxyYPlv4RVs

Azure Ray
“Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor are Alabama natives, childhood friends, and progenitors of dream pop duo Azure Ray. Throughout most of their Azure work, the pair grounded their tracks in vocal harmonization and added in some folksy acoustic guitar and/or piano melodies, such as in 2010’s Drawing Down the Moon. But in the latest LP released this month, As Above So Below, Fink and Taylor immerse their warm vocals in electronic atmospherics, vocal delay effects, and a smattering of bass.” — Kevin Lee
With Soko, Haroula Rose
Thu/20, 8pm, $15
Swedish American Music Hall
2174 Market, SF
(415) 431-7578
www.cafedunord.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G939RSPIfIU

Bay for the Bayou Benefit
This event, featuring New Orleans R&B artist/iconic singer-songwriter-pianist Allen Toussaint and his band, and soulful locals the California Honeydrops and the Shots, would be a must-see without the added bonus of it being a fundraiser, though it does get a bit pricey thanks to that important benefit aspect. The concert (and live auction) will raise funds to help save the Louisiana coastal wetlands – which are rapidly disappearing.
Bimbo’s
Fri/21, 8pm, $75-$100
1025 Columbus, SF
(415) 474-0365
www.bimbos365club.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGAFOz5GA8I

Wilco (and Cibo Matto and Jonathan Richman)
“As recent sold-out performances at the Fox attest, Chicago’s Wilco is an easy sell. Eight albums in with 2011’s The Whole Love, Jeff Tweedy continues to catalog tender hearts at the edge of maddening fights, backgrounded arguably the most expansive band in rock. But the added draw this time are the openers; Friday is a second chance for anyone who missed Cibo Matto’s reunion show at Bimbo’s last year, while Saturday features beloved raconteur Jonathan Richman, with extra of room for him to let loose his signature dance moves.” — Ryan Prendiville)
Fri/21 with Cibo Matto; Sat/22 with Jonathan Richman
7:30pm, $49.50
Greek Theatre
2001 Gayley Road, Berk.
(510) 548-3010
www.apeconcerts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp1AIh2DkI0

Holograms
Stockholm’s Holograms boasts the anxious panic of synthy ’80s new wave backed by hard-hitting punk beats, riffs,and hollers. Something like slapping Sham 69 on an illuminated dancefloor, neon lasers darting over their snarling faces. You’ll pogo if you know what’s good for you.
With Maus Haus, Group Rhoda, DJ Omar
Fri/21, 9pm, $10-$12
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
(415) 861-2011
www.rickshawstop.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOrRmH4azlk

Yob
“Eugene, Oreg.’s Yob has been producing sprawling doom metal landscapes since 1996, but it’s taken until 2012 for it to get noticed. Though the mainstream press has finally picked up on the band — Spin Magazine placed its sixth album, Atma, in its top 50 records of 2011 — Yob’s masterful songwriting and awesomely sinister energy hasn’t lost any of its edge. Atma is a megalith of slow, chugging riffs and discordant melodies, the shortest song clocking in at seven minutes and 33 seconds. Vocalist (and Krav Maga instructor) Mike Scheidt shrieks and growls over the sludge like a demon that has finally been unleashed.” — Haley Zaremba
With Acid King, Norska
Fri/21, 9pm, $12
Brick and Mortar Music Hall
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 800-8782
www.brickandmortarmusic.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaSkJMH3-Pw

The Uptones
You know that checkerboard brand of 2tone ska, when it moved from its first wave in Jamaica to its second in the UK and US? Bands like the Toasters, the Specials, the English Beat, and yes, the Uptones, were all a part of that bubbling new scene. In fact, the Uptones have oft been breathlessly noted for having the specific distinction as “one of the first bands devoted to playing ska on the West Coast.” Three decades and some change later, the brass-heavy Berkeley ska band is still doing it, for your reverential skanking pleasure.
With Nino Zombie
Sat/22, 9pm, $10
RKRL
52 Sixth St., SF
www.RKRLsf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYG-LTM_byU

Eddie Palmieri
Nicknamed the “Latin Thelonious Monk,” Eddie Palmieri has been bringing Latin dance music – with a twist – to the States since ’60s. The colorful jazz pianist and bandleader has inspired generations of performers with unconventional style and an exciting fusion of sounds. This weekend, he plays a free show in the Yerba Buena Gardens.
Sun/23, 1-3pm, free
Yerba Buena Gardens
745 Mission, SF
www.ybgf.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftQDhQ2UXo8

Avant-garde chaos to deep musical connections

Tony Robles
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Avant-garde chaos to deep musical connections

“How the hell did this happen?” asks Anthony (Ant) Anderson, sitting in Willard Park, Berkeley, on a sunny afternoon. Ant lives in a house not far from here known as Church, which is where his story – and his weekly jam sessions – began. The “this” in question is his role in both the evolution of Church, and the weekly People’s Jam night, which pal Dustin Smurthwaite created at a club in Oakland.

Ant was invited to live at Church by his friend Erico Cisneros, who he met at a show in San Francisco.  At the house, Ant met Michael Shaun and Emma James – beginning in May 2011, the trio began to celebrate the end of each weekend with Sunday night jam sessions. John Burke moved into the house later and became a central part of the Church house.

A variety of local East Bay musicians began dropping by and providing instruments, expanding the group jams. “We have friends who have given us speakers and a PA system, people donate phones, professional soundproof phone pads to keep the sound in, and people bring food and drinks,” Ant says. “Once, our friend even set up a whole bar. People have just been so giving.”

Well-known musicians began stopping in as well, including David Satori from Beats Antique.

Enter partner in music, Smurthwaite: one night Ant was playing with local folk rock band Whiskerman (led by Graham Patzner, brother of Anton and Lewis, who perform string metal in Judgement Day), and Smurthwaite was in the audience. “Before I knew it he just hopped onstage and grabbed a spare trombone…while I played trumpet,” Ant says with a chuckle, his characteristic grin spreading wide across his face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHQvIt4kfk0

“I just saw the opportunity,” Smurthwaite says from his practice space in an Oakland warehouse. “Most people didn’t even know I played trombone.” Smurthwaite is a multi-instrumentalist, who was more known for playing bass and keys back then. “All I had time for was basically giving Anthony a pat on the back before I began playing, and then we exchanged phone numbers afterward.”

In addition to the Church jams, Smurthwaite had been playing every Wednesday with Steve Taylor’s band at the Layover in Oakland. At the Layover, Taylor was playing improvised music – not quite a jam session – and when he got too busy, he asked Smurthwaite if he wanted to take over the event.

Smurthwaite ran the club night for a month or so, then called up Ant to join him and come on as the official host. It now takes place weekly in downtown Oakland at the Layover.

So what kind of music should you expect to find on your average night at People’s Jam? “The Jam is centered around funk, neo soul, hip-hop, jazz, and a crew of Balkan musicians who have also started coming through. We have numerous instruments regularly in the horn section, [we] often see a clarinet or two, and string players like cello or violin, when we can amp them. There is a strong Latin sound as well,” adds Ant.

The house band (known collectively as Bay Funk) consists of Ant, Smurthwaite, Cisneros on bass, Jesse Scheehan on tenor sax, Dan Schwartz and Patrick Aguirre on drums, Kevin Rierson on bass, Derek Yellin on piano. Vocalists Sarah Aboulafia, Sally Green and Povi Chidester also frequent the event, as well as Michael Shawn Olivera Cuevas, from the Church house, who is a poet, artist, and MC.

“It is all about communication with the band,” Smurthwaite says. “It’s best to be as direct as possible.”

Smurthwaite points out that People’s Jam has also been a great opportunity for people to express themselves during the Occupy Movement and economic crisis. “Your voice is amplified – people can here you. That’s a powerful thing,” he says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3Z8Or-ACo

“It’s great because both [Church and People’s Jam] are free,” Ant says. “Although Sunday and Wednesday are unconventional nights for such parties, it benefits musicians because they can also play shows on busier concert nights.” He adds, “Also Sundays can be bleak, the end of the weekend, so it works out great because after Church, you have this extremely festive and positive feeling makes you feel stoked going into Monday.”

Both events – Sunday’s Church jam sessions and Wednesday’s People’s Jam at the Layover – maintain a grassroots mentality.

“I used to send out literally 300 texts to everyone I know every Wednesday inviting them to the Layover. It was really slow at first, as we started invited people from Church to come and they became the main core of people who began to attend. Church and the People’s Jam, side by side, began creating a community of people – that is how we came up with a core group of musicians.”

I have never been at an event quite like the People’s Jam. There are open mic nights and there are concerts – but the Jam finds the perfect in-between. The majority of performers are confident and relaxed. You can dance uninhibited and never worry about being judged, but you can just as easily sit at the bar and watch the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB9_bU8qiKg

It’s a safe environment for self-expression, and Ant and Smurthwaite work hard to keep it that way. Smurthwaite explained to me how they make a point to incorporate the diverse array of people that come through the Layover.

“At first we had nights where the music was just unintentional avant-garde chaos, it was like, barely hobbling along on one leg, trying to make it happen with barely any musicians and no audience. The audience has transformed over the past year from no one in the bar to an absolute army of musicians, getting so into it,” Ant says.

“I have heard at least five different people tell me ‘This is the best party I have ever been to in my life’, which I find mind blowing. A lot of people I know have met their significant other at Church or Layover, they have made friends there, formed bands. It is a constant thing I hear of, these new relationships and connections.”

People’s Jam
Every Wed/10pm, free
Layover
1517 Franklin, Oakl.
(510) 834-1517
www.oaklandlayover.com

Happy Birthday Occupy

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Occupy celebrates its one-year anniversary Monday, and many of the groups who have gotten involved over the past year will be going all out. These groups’ goals–  including ending unjust foreclosures,  fighting displacement of queer people and homeless people, and taking back power from banks and the one percent– are a lot to achieve in one year. But they’ve made great stride. They’ll celebrate, and commit to another year of action, on Monday. 

Occupy Bernal, Occupy Noe and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment will put the pressure on banks that continue to foreclose on San Franciscans despite widespread evidence of fraud and a city resolution calling for a moratorium on foreclosures. At noon, they will hold a rally highlighting the ways that the foreclosure crisis disproportionately affects seniors, veterans and disabled people- find them at 401 Van Ness. At 3pm they will rally One Market Plaza, the officers of Fortress Investment Group board co-chair Peter Briger, infamous amongst the “foreclosure fighters” for his role in selling off distressed home mortgage debt.  

In the Castro, Community Not Commodity, the coalition that formed around an Occupride march protesting the corporate takeover of the Gay Pride Parade and continues to fight “increased rent, foreclosures and evictions, and the displacement of queer and homeless youth.”  They will meet up at 2pm at 18th and Castro for a speak-out, followed by a march on the banks at 3 and a sit-in protesting sit-lie at Harvey Milk Plaza. 

Also at 2pm, Occupy Oakland is throwing a street party. They’ll converge at Embarcadero and Market at Justin Herman Plaza (renamed Bradley Manning Plaza by the people from Occupy San Francisco, whose encampment stood there for three months last fall.) Organizers advise: stay tuned for Oct. 10, the one-year anniversary of Occupy Oakland. 

But Occupy San Francisco didn’t start at Justin Herman Plaza. It started Sept. 17, 2011 at 555 California, outside the building that houses the Bank of America west coast headquarters along with Goldman Sachs offices. It’s there that everyone will converge at 5pm for a raucous casserole-style march with the Brass Liberation Orchestra, followed by guerilla movie screenings, food to share, and a debt burning: “bring dept papers (BYOD) to burn symbolically,” say organizers.

Can’t wait for tomorrow? Occupy SF hosts a day of poetry and speakers at Justin Herman Plaza today. The Human Be In, the unpermitted music and skillshare festival that brought hundreds to play music, teach workshops, and “transform space” in a dusty spot near Ocean Beach yesterday continues through tonight.  Occupy Bay Area United is also throwing a rally and teach–in focused on corporate greed starting outside 555 California at 7pm. 

Occupy is dead! Long live Occupy!

Appetite: What not to miss at SF Cocktail Week

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Appetite: What not to miss at SF Cocktail Week

SF Cocktail Week is here once again, drawing out cocktail geeks, spirits aficionados, and those seeking a memorable event or a fine drink.

For those of you who attended last year’s San Francisco Cocktail Week, you know it was jam-packed with some downright magical events, celebrating our city’s rich cocktail heritage and talent that has influenced the cocktail renaissance globally. There’s another strong line-up this year, in keeping with the memorable highlights from last year and the year prior.


To name a few, the annual party at St. George’s WWII hangar and distillery is always one of the highlights of Cocktail Week. This year the theme is cops and robbers with bartenders serving drinks behind bars, squirt gun target practice, live music from funky-fun Hot Pocket, and food from Tacolicious, Breads of India and Five Ten Burger.

The second annual Legends Awards http://sfcocktailweek.com/legends-awards.html honors legends in the drink world, including a lifetime achievement award for Miles Karakasevic, 13th-generation master distiller at Charbay. Best of the West assembles top bartending talent from cities of the West Coast, and for the first time this year, food carts and cocktails gather at Spirited Food Trucks in the new SoMa StrEat Food Park, heated patio and all. Another new event this year? Jupiter Olympus’ California Altered State Fair, a raucous event of games, fried food, contests in a state fair theme with drinks like a Salt-Water Taffy Old Fashioned or a Manhattan Sno-Cone.

There are dinners, after parties, and nightly events… a little something for everyone in a city that has long known how to craft a fine cocktail. Tickets and schedule here.

— Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

The Performant: Further

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The Performant: Further

You’re either on the bus, or you’re off the bus at Popcorn Anti-Theater’s Fringe Festival revival

As lovers of art, adventure, and reckless shenanigans might recall, the monthly Popcorn Anti-Theater bus shows last rolled about eight years ago, and while plenty of other groups have used buses as vehicles to drive a performance since, none have managed it with the same regularity and broadness of scope.

The aggressively anything-goes vibe of Popcorn events of yore combined theatrics, live music, dance, poetry, gibberish, urban exploration, and plenty of oddience participation into a series of unpredictable occurrences. Since the shows were pulled together by different collaborators each month, it wasn’t always necessarily “good” art (a specious qualifier at best), but it was almost always good fun, so when I hear that Popcorn is making a rare appearance at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, I immediately resolve to check it out.


Although the pristine white rent-a-bus is only half full as we pull away from the EXIT Theatre, the morale is high. As we settle into our seats, an attractive young woman in a lab coat, Assistant J (Crystelle Reola) passes out index cards and pens and instructs us to write down our deepest desires as the grey-wigged Professor Murnau (V.N. Von Boom Boom) introduces herself as dead. As the bus noses along, en route to our secret destination, we are treated to video footage of a group of cute kids undergoing a test of their willpower ala the 1972 Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. We also receive marshmallows of our own, which some folks eat immediately, and others save for later.

We wind up on Treasure Island where we encounter the rest of the cast who, according to the script, were mysteriously instructed to show up at a secret location for undisclosed reasons. An unlikely trio, a wealthy businessman, a self-important socialite, and an aging radical, they fuss and squabble, their action framed by a bright string of distant city lights. Gradually they come to realize that they were all part of the original Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, and that the dead professor and the beguiling Assistant J. have brought them back together to “conclude” the experiment. The world, it seems, is divided into “Gobblers” and “Resisters”. The marshmallow still tucked warm in my pocket attests to my abilities in impulse control, but *what does it all mean?*

Written and directed by Patricia Miller, “Sugar High: The Four Marshmallows of the Apocalypse,” heralds Popcorn’s return to the (very) small stage and monthly social calendar. Originator and ringleader Hernan Cortez promises to roll out the bus rides every first Friday of the month, with an emphasis on unconventional performance structure and scenic site-specificity, or what he calls “the diesel-driven processional spirit of adventure.”

“The idea is to be short, sweet, and mobile,” he explains of the hit-and-run style of Popcorn’s “thea-tours”. “Most performance (can be) executed in less than five minutes, seven tops. Basically if you can’t communicate in a short time span, you can’t communicate.” But he emphasizes that almost any artistic discipline can be a part of Popcorn. “If anyone musician, comedian, actor, scientist , cook, burlesque , variety act  has had a hard time finding a stage to perform on, you may find a home here.”

As we pull back up to the EXIT Theatre, left to ponder the concepts communicated to us during our brief sojourn to a parallel universe, I realize I still have my marshmallow and look forward to my reward. Sadly it appears that the reward for not eating my marshmallow early is only the opportunity to eat it late. Fair enough, I suppose. Marshmallows don’t grow on trees. But I’m not entirely sure the experiential portion of the show can be called complete without the possibility to win a second. Maybe next time.

Localized Appreesh: Permanent Collection

Tony Robles
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Localized Appreesh is our thank-you column to the musicians that make the Bay. To be considered, contact emilysavage@sfbg.com.

What began life as the solo side project of Young Prisms’ Jason Hendardy is now a fully functioning local shoegaze operation. Permanent Collection, just last month released debut full-length Newly Wed Nearly Dead on San Francisco’s Loglady Records (another entity Hendardy is a part of).

Swathed in hazy guitars with on-point murmuring vocals, Newly Wed Nearly Dead is a package that should be presented to angsty teens upon puberty. Here, listen to this and then go back to study its influences from the late 1980s for a map of underground pop and the origins of shoegaze.

Also, doesn’t the below video for “It’s Alright” kind of weirdly remind you of a modern San Francisco version of Smashing Pumpkin’s video for “1979?” Just me? Either way, it’s a fun shoot, the band cruising through the rain-slick city, drinking 40s and stopping by local diners (It’s Tops?) for fried food and condiment slurping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnTJ3U_hdeo

Clearly, the band’s off to a good start. Now go see it live. Permanent Collection plays the daytime street party, Rock Make this weekend and Milk Bar with Ringo Deathstarr next Wednesday, Sept. 19. But first, it gave us the rundown on a few favorites (MTV in ’93, California girls, free sunday barbecue at Molotovs) and the things it could live without (the San Francisco garage rock bubble).

Year and location of origin: Late 2010 as a single person band, 2011 as a full band.

Band name origin: A name to make songs under.

Band motto: No one likes it when bands play more than 25 minutes.

Instrumentation: Jason – Guitar/vocals, Megan – Bass, Brenden – Guitar, Mike – Drums.

Description of sound in 10 words or less: 
Jason – some kind of pop songs.
Brenden – MTV in ’93.
Megan – drowning in the ocean.
Mike – Loud.

Most recent release: Newly Wed, Nearly Dead.

Best part about life as a Bay Area band:
Jason – Everyone is an artist.
Brenden – California girls.
Megan – Weather.
Mike – Learning about the awesome Bay Area bands that came before us.

Worst part about life as a Bay Area band:
Jason – Everyone is an artist
Brenden – The San Francisco garage rock bubble
Megan – Tourist
Mike – It’s getting hard to set up house shows in SF

First album ever purchased:
Jason – Please Hammer Don’t Hurt Em by MC Hammer on cassette from Tower Records.
Brenden – Nevermind by Nirvana.
Megan – Crazy Sexy Cool by TLC.
Mike – I think it was Green by REM.

Most recent album purchased/downloaded:
Jason – Beyond Living by Milk Music.
Brenden – Love Tara by Eric’s Trip.
Mike – S/T by Happy Noose.

Favorite local eatery and dish:
Jason – Tacos from La Taqueria on Mission.
Brenden – California Burrito and a Budweiser from Los Coyotes Taqueria.
Megan – Free sunday BBQ at Molotovs.
Mike – Pizza from Serrano’s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnTJ3U_hdeo

Rock Make Street Festival with Permanent Collection, John Vanderslice, Exray’s, Burnt Ones, Metal Mother, and more
Sat/15, noon-7pm, $3-$5 donation
Treat and 18th Street, SF
www.rockmake.com

Live Shots: Blondie and Devo at the Warfield

Tony Robles
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2

I was flipping around on my car’s FM dial last week and had the bleeding-from-the-ears misfortune of coming upon Taylor Swift’s staggeringly awful new single. I thought for a moment that I landed on some kind of Disney or Nickelodeon channel, where corporate-oriented bands score those awkward tween TV shows. In reality though, Swift is currently selling the shit out of the thing on iTunes…and leaving me to question my faith in humanity’s hearing.
 
So I was all the more enthusiastic as I headed to the Warfield on Monday night for the Devo and Blondie double bill. Clearly, I was in need of some kind of authentic audio to counter balance the heavy dose of vapid pop I had stumbled into on the airwaves. And even as their 1979 heyday grows ever more distant, Blondie and Devo delivered in a big way on Monday.
 
In a Warhol-esque gold lame getup, Debbie Harry exuded all the badass charm that you would expect of her, delivering a great set to a dedicated crowd that delighted in Blondie classics like “Heart of Glass” and “Hanging on the Telephone.” Harry sang “Call Me” with an exquisite edge that seemed to all by itself unravel my modern music frustrations.
 
Better yet, was the aberrant entity known as Devo, which filled its opening slot with an eruption of live wire punk energy that proved strangely relevant to the age we reside in. It was more punk than anything you’ll find at Warped Tour, more neo-futuristic than Skrillex and his plastic space ship stage at Outside Lands. “What We Do,” “Are We Not Men,” and of course “Whip It” were all showcased as Devo built its sublime dozen song set to an oddball fever pitch, amid pixilated waves of scrolling visuals and numerous costume changes.
 
All told, I left Sixth and Market to return back to the future with my confidence restored in American music. Swift’s new single isn’t the first time that radio (or MTV or iTunes) has hurled all manner of sonic schlock in our direction. And if that’s true, then Blondie and Devo suggest that the inverse must also be true: that genuine audio eventually rises to the top in the long term, through one avenue or another.
 
And if it arrives wearing one of those weird red conical hats, then so be it.

 

All photos by Charles Russo.

Words and deeds

Andrew Lam
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4
Words and deeds

steve@sfbg.com

When Mayor Ed Lee appointed engineer and pro-development activist Rodrigo Santos to fill a vacant seat on the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees, both men talked about the urgent need to save this troubled but vitally important institution.

“Our economic future is directly tied to the success of City College,” Lee said at a press conference, touting the school’s critical job-training role.

But when you cut through all the politics and hyperbole, the school’s biggest single problem is a lack of money — and the mayor and his new trustee aren’t doing much to help.

Neither Lee nor Santos have yet endorsed or publicly supported Proposition A, the $79-per-parcel tax that would stave off deep cuts to a district whose accreditation has been threatened over its anemic cash reserves and reluctance to scale back its course offerings (see “City College fights back,” July 17).

Nor have they appealed for support from their deep-pocketed allies in the business community, which City College supporters say should be doing more to support the district.

And while some say Lee is finally getting ready to endorse Prop. A, he’s done nothing to help the campaign.

“It’s a shame because [the mayor] has pledged to support City College,” John Rizzo, president of the Board of Trustees and a supervisorial candidate from District 5.

Lee also refused a request the trustees made last year to ease the more than $2.5 million in rent and fees that the district pays annually to the city. That’s a stark contrast to the city’s generous support of the San Francisco Unified School District, which gets an annual subsidy from the city of around $25 million, thanks to a ballot measure pushed by city officials of various ideological stripes.

“K-12 is important, but when we try to get help from the city, it falls on deaf ears and I don’t know why. Maybe little kids are cuter,” Rizzo told us.

Sup. Eric Mar said that dichotomy is a real problem, particularly given City College’s current challenges and the important role it plays in providing low-cost training to local workers. Mar has called for a hearing this month before the Joint City and School District Select Committee, which oversees SFUSD’s relationship with the city.

“I support stronger city support for City College,” Mar told us.

Asked about Lee’s unwillingness to help with City College’s fiscal situation, mayoral Press Secretary Christine Falvey said Lee has offered logistical support from city officials to help City College overcome the threats to its accreditation and has been carefully monitoring the situation, but she didn’t directly address why he has withheld financial support or endorsed Prop. A.

“The mayor has not taken a position on the parcel tax and is focusing his efforts on supporting the college’s need for serious fiscal and management changes and protecting its accreditation,” she told us by email Sept. 7. “The mayor knows it is more important than ever that the City support City College to make sure they get back on their feet for the sake of current and future City College students and for all San Francisco residents.”

But City College officials aren’t buying it. “Talk and nice words don’t mean anything anymore,” Rizzo said.

Other Prop. A supporters agree.

“The mayor needs to step up and support this,” Trustee Chris Jackson told the Guardian, arguing that most of the district’s problems stem from steadily declining financial support from the state. “We have a revenue problem.”

“It is the workforce training vehicle for the city,” said Rafael Mandelman, a candidate for trustee who has been actively supporting Prop. A. “Maybe now is the time when the city shouldn’t say no to that.”

Falvey responded by saying, “The City supports all of our public education institutions in some capacity. Each public education institution also pays the city for some of the required services it is provided.”

Other Prop. A supporters say they are hopeful that Lee may still come around. Alisa Messer, president of American Federation of Teachers Local 2121, which represents City College faculty, told us, “The mayor says he supports City College and we’re hoping he will support the measure soon.”

Gabriel Haaland, who has been working on the measure for SEIU Local 1021, also told us as we were going to press on Sept. 10, that Lee seems to be coming around: “From what I understand, the mayor is about to endorse it.”

 

 

PROMISE OF SUPPORT

When Lee appointed Santos — who has raised an unprecedented amount of money for his race, $113,153 as for July 1, mostly from the real estate and development interests he represents as president of Coalition for Responsible Growth — some argued that it would bring needed financial support for the district and the Prop. A campaign.

“He is expected to bring his allies in these fields into the fight to save City College, which faces a critical 2/3 vote on a parcel tax this November,” Tenderloin Housing Clinic Director Randy Shaw wrote on his Beyond Chron blog on Aug. 22, a day after telling the Guardian how the parcel tax was essential to City College’s future and Santos was uniquely positioned to support it.

But Santos, whose campaign didn’t return Guardian calls on the issue, hasn’t appeared at any Yes on A campaign events or offered any discernible support for the measure, whose supporters had only raised a little over $20,000 as of July 1. While there is little organized opposition to Prop. A, the fact that it needs approval by two-thirds of voters is a challenge that requires strong support.

Rizzo said Shaw’s argument doesn’t hold up. “It’s a nice theory,” he said, “but I haven’t seen evidence of that, and I haven’t seen Rodrigo at any Prop. A events.”

Santos hadn’t been involved with City College or educational issues before deciding to run for trustee, and he’s widely perceived as an ambitious politico setting himself up to run for the Board of Supervisors. At his press conference, Santos pledged to aggressively fight for City College.

“I join an institution that must be saved, and I’m absolutely committed to that goal,” Santos said.

Lee assembled a variety of representatives from “the city family” at his press conference, including trustees Natalie Berg and Anita Grier, Interim Chancellor Pamila Fisher, representatives from the Controller’s Office, Board of Education, Department of Children Youth and their Families, and the Mayor’s Budget Office.

“They, after all, need our help, need our support and they will not be able to accomplish it all by themselves,” said Lee, who pointedly didn’t say anything about the parcel tax at the event, even though he sang the praises of the district. “It empowers those economic sectors that we consider most valuable to our future, especially in the area of health care, hospitality, biotech, and now technology in general. We have become dependent on City College for their ability to prepare future workforces.”

Lee also sounded a tough love theme, saying “any improvement means a change from the status quo” and praising Santos as “someone who shares my vision of reform and will support the tough decisions ahead.”

Indeed, the board members face a number of tough decisions in the coming weeks, from whether to abdicate some of their authority to a special trustee empowered to make unilateral decisions about what programs to cut or campuses to close. The college is responding to a threat from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges to live within its means or lose its accreditation.

Santos didn’t mention Prop. A during the press conference that followed his swearing in, instead offering vague platitudes and promises that he’s willing to work hard and make tough decisions, while also making some puzzling statements about the district’s current situation.

“We must support the interim chancellor, Pamila Fisher,” he said. “Our primary duty is to ensure she enjoys the support and tools needed to implement difficult reforms. At the same time, we will hold her accountable, we will help her, we will challenge her.”

He appeared unaware that Fisher’s tenure ends in just a few weeks, well before any reforms could possibly be approved or implemented.

Some Prop. A supporters are hoping Santos will also challenge his allies in the business community to open their wallets and support both Prop. A and ongoing operations at City College.

“It would be great for the businesses to step up in a big way because they are really benefiting from our workforce training programs,” Messer said. “It’s clear to me the business community understands how important City College is to this city.”

Now, City College’s biggest supporters say it’s time for the city and the business community to put their money where their mouths are.

“City College certainly gives back to the people of San Francisco,” Rizzo said, “and it’s time for the city to give back to City College.”

Dark and stormy

Andrew Lam
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1
Dark and stormy

arts@sfbg.com

FILM In Ira Sachs’ intensely discomfiting Keep the Lights On, Erik (Thure Lindhardt) is a Danish documentarian in late-1990s New York City, prodding his career along, spending time with friends, having casual sex with strangers. One of the latter is Paul (Zachary Booth), a publishing-house lawyer who first tells him “I have a girlfriend, so don’t get your hopes up.” Yet some time later they’ve become a tentative couple, then a live-in one.

Erik is patient and easygoing, but Paul has secrets and problems all the more difficult to deal with because he denies, hides, or lies about them. He disappears for days at a time, then turns up wrecked. Crack is just the addiction we see; there are evidently others. Erik tries everything — group interventions, rehab, endless attempts at frank conversation that invariably turn into Paul accusing him of being unreasonable — but nothing sticks. On some level, Paul doesn’t want to be saved; drugs are like a bad old boyfriend he can’t help keep going back to, when not crawling back to the current one for forgiveness.

It takes Erik a decade to come to terms with, and extricate himself from, a relationship in which all his best efforts only bring torment, grief, and exasperation. “I have no idea who you are, I have no idea what you’re doing,” he cries during one argument. “I don’t know why you’re focusing on me,” Paul snaps, instinctively trying to shift the blame. Near the end, he questions out loud if Erik ever loved him — the fact that he isn’t doing what Paul wants that very second somehow negating years of sacrifice and worry that could only have been sustained by love.

Keep the Lights On is the kind of excellent movie a lot of people don’t like: it’s not just depressing in the sense of having downbeat, difficult subject matter, it actually sets out to be unpleasant and succeeds. There is a point to that. Leaping forward a couple years at a time, leaving us to figure out how things have shifted in the interim, Sachs’ script (co-written with Mauricio Zacharias) induces in the viewer the disoriented helplessness of dealing with a loved one who can’t or won’t tell the full truth — it’s his best defense.

The film’s somewhat squirm-inducing intimacy comes naturally, as the writer-director lived this story, however much it’s been tweaked into fictive dramatic form. “Paul” is a stand-in for a long-term boyfriend who wrestled with similar demons while somehow sustaining a high-profile career in the publishing industry. (He’s also since written a couple of memoirs about his addiction struggles, though despite that public self-exposure, the film still “created a wedge” between them, according to Sachs.)

“I think all of my films are autobiographical — I only feel excited to tell a story when I’ve lived an experience and have some analytical understanding of what took place,” Sachs said while in San Francisco for the movie’s screening at Frameline 2012.

Still, Lights is clearly a more jarringly personal project than his unsettling coming-out tale debut The Delta (1996) or the Sundance prize winner Forty Shades of Blue (2005), let alone 1950s heterosexual infidelity seriocomedy Married Life (2007). Nonetheless he now “sees them all as the same film — they’re all about people arriving at a point where they’re comfortable with who they are.”

Saying that he himself was “uncomfortable with who I [was, up] until the events in this film,” he now lives “an open life” with husband Boris Torres, a painter whose work is seen under the opening titles. “That’s a consequence of work I’ve done on my own,” Sachs said. “I really feel that secrets almost killed me. It’s very empowering to claim your secrets. I intended to make a film about shame and to do so shamelessly.”

In some ways, “this film is less about addiction than obsession, which is a very comfortable place for many of us to be — it cuts out the rest of the world and narrows the challenges. It’s very addicting to engage in this kind of relationship.” Some nonexploitative but explicit sexual content made Lights hard to cast (one major agency told him not a single one of their actors were “available”), but wound up with bilingual rising star Lindhardt. It’s an extraordinary performance that carries the whole film; by contrast Booth, to the frustration of some reviewers, plays a character deliberately kept somewhat furtive and unknowable.

While making Keep the Lights On afforded Sachs a cathartic way to “free myself from inhibitions around the story itself,” the consequence has been that “in the aftermath of these events I chose to live an honest life, and the result is that the dishonest and illicit is less interesting to me. So having made four films about deceit within a romantic relationship, that is no longer how I live or a story I’m interested in telling.”

He says his next project will be “about a 30-year relationship based on love and complexity between two men who decide to get married at ages 60 and 70.” Lights also pays homage to gay elders: Erik is working on a documentary about real-life photographer and filmmaker Avery Willard (whose still little-known work comprises “a visual anthropology of gay life in New York from the ’40s to the ’90s”), and the score consists of slippery songs by Arthur Russell, the enigmatic cult cellist-composer who died of AIDS 20 years ago. *

 

KEEP THE LIGHTS ON opens Fri/14 in Bay Area theaters.

Call Miss Jenkins

Andrew Lam
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2
Call Miss Jenkins

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO I’m not one to gossip, but …. Story of the month, courtesy of weekly Friday drag extravaganza Some Thing at the Stud: a giant party limo parked outside the club. Blah blah Kirsten Dunst, blah blah Alexander Wang, blah blah a dozen hangers-on blah. (I was inside chilling with the true star of the evening, OG NYC clubkid Desi Monster.) Formidable doorperson Dean Disaster: “Seven dollars each, please.” Wang hanger-on, clutching pearls: “But we’ve never paid cover before!” Disaster: “Here, let me guide you through it. Give me seven dollars. And then I’ll let you in the club.” They paid. We’re all VIPs in this house, henty.

ALTON MILLER

The Detroit-Chicago master was integral to the early techno scene (he co-owned the world’s first techno club, the Music Institute) and has produced a vast catalogue of beautiful, grown-up deep house grooves rooted in African drumming’s expansive rhythms and personal tech flourishes — see lovely 2010 album Light Years Away. He also happens to be one of my favorite people ever. (Sorry, journalistic bias!) Join him at fantastic weekly Housepitality for a trip to the stratosphere and some sophisticated magic alongside locals DJ Said of the Fatsouls label and Ivan Ruiz of the just-launched Moulton Music label.

Wed/12, 9pm, $5 before 11pm, $10 after (free before 11pm with RSVP at www.housepitalitysf.com), Icon, 1192 Folsom, SF.

L O S T • C ? T

Weird biweekly dance party. Recommended.

Thu/13, 10pm, $3. Showdown, 10 Sixth St., SF. www.tinyurl.com/lostcatsf

BODY + SPACE

The bi-annual, summer-long Soundwave sonic festival is still in full effect, and this special event sounds experimental-awesome. Example? “Genesis,” a work by Polly Moller “explores 11 dimensions of the universe and the magical creation of a new 12th dimension.” Also: mechanical tone poems, anxiety dances, sonic wombs.

Fri/14, doors 7:30pm, show at 8, $15. Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF. www.projectsoundwave.com/5/

MADE IN DETROIT

For the past little while, you could actually almost hear the Detroit techno torch being passed to young’uns Kyle Hall and Jay Daniel. It sounded like a butterfly exploding in a Model T factory. Kaychunk! But it actually sounded like an ingenious melding of deep bass sounds and post-glitch effects applied to classic cosmic techno ambiance. Seeing the duo tagteam classic vinyl at this year’s Movement festival cemented my love for them. This As You Like It party may do yours the same.

Fri/14, 9pm-4am, $10 before 10pm, $20 after. Beatbox, 314 11th St., SF. www.ayli-sf.com

RUSTIE

Adore the laser-cut future bass gems that Rustie the Scot has hewn from his sparkling imagination. He’ll be warping 1015 with another great, Kode9, along with sublime electro-stoner Elliot Lipp and locals DJ Dials, Slayers Club, tons more.

Fri/14, 10pm-5am, $20–$25. 1015 Folsom, www.1015.com

BRING YOUR OWN QUEER

Bring Your Own Queer self (not in a paper bag, please!) to this annual free outdoor daytime funfest, filling the Golden Gate park bandshell with hot pick dance party craziness! DJs Carrie Morrison and Steve Fabus, live sets by Adonisaurus and Darling Gunsel, and, like, zillions more. Plus the Jiggalicious Dance Babes. Gotta love the Jiggalicious Dance Babes. Double rainbow part two!

Sat/15, noon-6pm, free. Music Concourse Bandshell, Golden Gate park. www.byoq.org

ANNA CONDA’S BIRTHDAY

She’s 45 alive! SF’s favorite queer-activist drag queen won’t exactly be roasted at this fundraising event for the Harvey Milk Club, but she will be toasted — something like 45 other queens will take the stage at this killer rock ‘n roll dance party (DJs Dirty Knees and Jon Ginoli) and tribute to her royal lowness.

Sat/15, 9pm, suggested donation $5–$10. The Edge, 4149 18th St., SFF. www.tinyurl.com/annaconda45

Pi in the sky, fig leaf optional

Andrew Lam
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1
Pi in the sky, fig leaf optional

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER Aficionados of the San Francisco Fringe Festival, now in its 21st year, know that sorting out the clowns, puppets, relationships, rock operas, and foreskin on display or under consideration across 12 days and roughly 40 shows can be a real crapshoot. But that’s the deal — and at least part of the appeal — with a curator-free, lottery-based program in which anybody with an act and the luck of the draw can set up shop for an hour on one of the handful of stages in operation at the Exit Theatre complex and participating venues.

Invariably ranging widely across (to borrow a title from this year’s lineup) "the good, the bad, and the stupid," the whole usually proves greater than the sum of the parts, private or otherwise. There’s just no event quite like the Fringe. And a really good show can make up for a lot of boredom and horrified silence.

Take, for instance, that title just borrowed above: the Pi Clowns’ latest show may not be perfect in every respect, but you can’t help respecting their perfect portrayal of our general fallibility. The Bay Area–based six-clown physical comedy troupe wowed in 2008 at their Fringe debut (After-Party), and they wow again in The Good, the Bad, and the Stupid, with expert chops, serious smarts, and an undiminished instinct for the ridiculous. Highlights of said lowlights include a horse race on broomstick stallions, a feast of acrobatic juggling, and another delicious slo-mo melee. (Meanwhile, on the significantly darker end of the clown spectrum, there’s Naked Empire Bouffon Company, raucous devotees of the grotesque, whose You Killed Hamlet, or Guilty Creatures Sitting at a Play was not caught in time for review but remains on the must-see list.)

Moving right down the alphabet from clowns, one will find several Christian-themed plays among this year’s offerings. Granted, most of these involve an ironic or satirical approach — like San Francisco–based David Caggiano’s deft and witty solo play, Jurassic Ark, which I caught in an earlier version elsewhere and which concerns an evangelical preacher Hollywood-bound with an idea for a major motion picture selling Creationism to the heathen evolution-swilling masses.

Then there’s Bible-Not: Stories for Grown Ups, which sounds like it sports a subversive edge to its advertised retellings of popular Bible stories, from Adam and Eve to Noah and the Flood. In fact, the play, written by retired journalist and clergyman Charley Lerrigo, is a lifeless resuscitation of ye old adages in a flatfooted comedic-dramatic vein, wherein, for instance, God appears to Noah as a beautiful woman in a silk gown — but still carries out the genocidal flood because she loves people. The last of the proselytizing play’s four dreary episodes (bridged by overtly thoughtful narration from a "showgirl" played by Karen Biscopink) is the second coming of Christ (Tristan Cunningham) to a San Francisco pastor named Bob (Charlie Shoemaker), who is naturally converted from disbelief to rapturous wonder in the face of the ingenuous, miracle-wielding stranger. Overall decently acted by a dutiful cast, the preachy play nevertheless reaches only the choir at best.

In the realm of puppetry, The Collector, by San Diego’s Animal Cracker Conspiracy, begins promisingly, with delicately designed maquette sets featuring a humble debt collector overseen by a tyrannical monkey-manager, simultaneous video projections and animations on a screen above, and a dreamy, clinking, wistful musical soundscape. But the wordless plot is sometimes challenging to decipher, the pace sluggish, and the action repetitive enough that, by the end, you realize it’s just a nifty installation that thought it was a play.

Meanwhile, Legacy of the Tiger Mother, by Las Vegas–based Angela Chan and Michael Manley, manages to pack a very clear, funny, and compellingly heartfelt storyline about intergenerational tensions between a Chinese American mother and daughter succinctly into a very agreeable hour — with music and witty lyrics for good measure. Chan’s semi-autobiographical musical may have formulaic elements, but they’re executed with winning skill and verve by a smart team fronted by the fine duo of Satomi Hofmann and Lynn Craig, accompanied by Chan on a piano that segues slyly between erratic keyboard exercises, controlled classical recitals, and expressive Broadway-style outbursts. (Meanwhile, on the darker and definitely weirder end of the cabaret spectrum, there’s SF’s Dan Carbone and Andrew Goldfarb in The Wounded Stag & Other Cloven-Footed Tales of Enchantment, whose archness is so arch as to be uncomfortably sincere.)

915 Cayuga’s SF Fringe Fest Extravaganza is a more promising title than show, but the radio-style variety piece, recorded as a podcast before its "live" Fringe audience, has a low-key charm despite often clunky or corny writing thanks to a fairly personable and adroit cast.

Among the more misleading titles is Aerial Allusions — at least if, like me, you picture some serious acrobatic work happening on and/or over the stage at some point. True, there’s a little able and lithesome wriggling around a ladder near the outset, but this meandering and semi-inept duet by a Canadian couple is lopsided in talent and altogether rambling. It took only a few seconds for one gentleman at the back to clear a path through some empty chairs and burst out of the theater. My date followed him a few minutes later. *

SAN FRANCISCO FRINGE FESTIVAL

Through Sun/16, most shows $10 or less

Exit Theatreplex

156 Eddy, SF

www.sffringe.org

Still soaring

Andrew Lam
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3
Still soaring

yael@sfbg.com

“I was 18 years old the first time they locked me up in a psych ward.”

So begins “The Bipolar World,” an article published in the Bay Guardian‘s literature section 10 years ago, on September 18, 2002. The writer, Sascha Altman DuBrul, tells the story of his life. He’d been arrested walking on New York subway tracks after the year he first experienced what would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder.

In the article, DuBrul wrote that the ideas shooting through his head were like a pinball game and he was convinced the radio was talking to him and that the CIA was recording his thoughts via secret neurotransmitters under his skin. But when he was diagnosed and told that he would need to take daily pills for the rest of his life, he wrote, “I wasn’t convinced, to say the least, that gulping down a handful of pills every day would make me sane.”

“I think it’s really about time we start carving some more of the middle ground with stories from outside the mainstream and creating a new language for ourselves that reflects all the complexity and brilliance that we hold inside,” the article concludes.

DuBrul was right—the time was ripe.

“Within a couple of days of it being out on the street, I got about 40 emails from strangers,” DuBrul told me. “And it wasn’t just one or two line emails that were,’ hey, great article.’ It was people pouring out their stories to me.”

One of those people was Oakland artist Jacks McNamara, and the two instantly connected.

“You know the myth of Icarus, right? It’s the boy who flies too close to the sun. It’s from Greek mythology. So we were two people who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and we were like, instead of seeing ourselves as diseased or disordered, we see ourselves as having dangerous gifts, like having wings,” DuBrul said. “And so, we put up a website that said, ‘The Icarus Project, navigating the space between brilliance and madness.'”

The Icarus Project began as a website, whose forums quickly filled with discussions as more people shared their stories and connected. Today, The Icarus Project has published three books, including a guide to starting support groups, dozens of which have sprung up around the country. More than 14,000 people have registered on the website.

The Bay Area-born radical mental health project celebrates its 10 year anniversary this year. An art show, concerts, spoken word, film screening, and skill share will take place this coming week. “Icaristas” will do what they do best: share their stories in language that feels right, building connections and community.

“When Sascha and I started it, we’d never seen anything written about bipolar that we could relate to. Everything was sterile and clinical and very mainstream, and didn’t really situate these sort of struggles within a larger political context,” McNamara recalls.

Now, there are Icarus Project books translated into six languages, and a huge collection of writing and art in what one zine editor, Jonah Bossewitch, calls the Icarus “sphere of influence and inspiration.”

“Our lives are made of fleeting moments, and to create documentation — whether in print or online or on canvas — is to make a fleeting moment into something to be shared. The Icarus Project and others who share similar ideas of liberation need to live our lives of beautiful fleeting moments, but also need to create documentation so that we can be heard,” said Laura-Marie Taylor, creator of Functionally Ill, an Icarus-inspired mental health zine now in its 13th edition.

“We’re in competition with the loud voices of psychiatry, advertising, governments, and other forces that want to tell us who we are. We need to broadcast our stories far and wide in order to counteract the forces that want to tell us who we are,” Taylor said.

That was also the view of Ken Paul Rosenthal, whose film, Crooked Beauty, will be screened at the 10-year anniversary celebration.

“She who does not write is written upon,” Rosenthal told me. “Society’s narratives will overwrite your authentic self.”

“I think more than anything, Icarus is about hearing stories,” he said.

And that story telling is intimately connected to the building of community and networks.

Rosenthal first got acquainted with Icarus when he read a line Mcnamara had written: “The world seemed to hit me so much harder and fill me so much fuller than anyone else I knew. Slanted sunlight could make me dizzy with its beauty and witnessing unkindness filled me with physical pain.”

“We really wanted to create materials that were beautiful and inspiring and that people actually wanted to read,” said McNamara. “And that they could relate to if they came from more of a subcultural perspective or just had suspicions about the mental health industry and the ways that it diagnoses people and treats them. “

Icarus concepts also spread through means other than their support groups and publications.

“A lot of long-term Icarus members have gone on to become social workers, or to become therapists, or in various ways to have careers that are based in mental health and are bringing alternative perspectives,” McNamara said.

One such Icarista is Kathy Rose. She met McNamara at a screening of Crooked Beauty in 2010, and began participating in support groups and volunteering with Icarus. A teacher at Five Keys Charter School, which operates in San Francisco county jails, Rose said that the understanding and language of mental health she got from Icarus have been useful in her classroom.

“I see how many of my students are struggling with their own mental health, how they are treated, and how so much is related to the trauma they’ve experienced in their lives and lack of support,” said Rose. She said that she has used Icarus materials in the classroom and screened Crooked Beauty.

Those materials explore questions of over-medication and independence and autonomy in decision-making and question the role of institutions like psychiatric hospitals and prisons.

“Institutionalization in prisons and mental hospitals isn’t helping anyone and isn’t getting us anywhere,” Rose said.

The Icarus Project isn’t the first effort to resist the mental health establishment. The Mental Patients Liberation Front, and the larger Psychiatric Survivors movement grew out of civil rights efforts of the 1960s and 70s, as patients demanded an end to coerced and forced psychiatric interventions like electroshock. Today, Mind Freedom International and other groups continue that pressure; most recently, hundreds protested an American Psychiatric Associations meeting discussing new definitions for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition on May 5.

The Icarus Project is also intimately connected to activist movements, but plays a unique role.

“There’s support networks that get started in activist communities, but there’s a lot of ways that people have a really hard time being supportive of each other if they haven’t done the work themselves to be able to be supportive of themselves,” said DuBrul. “What happens in activist communities is that people burn out, which is kind of the ultimate Icarus project. I mean, that’s the Icarus myth.”

He called the Occupy movement, with its distinctive tent cities packed with people, many of whom were hurting financially and emotionally, a “test case” for implementing Icarus concepts.

In fact, Occupy has led to yet another Icarus-inspired book, Mindful Occupation, due to be released this year. The book “aims to address the need for attention to mental health, healing, and emotional first aid within Occupy and other movement groups.”

Mental health professionals, along with other non-professionals who were a part of Occupy Wall Street, formed the Support working group to intervene when people seemed to be in crisis and patrol the park at night. But Jonah Bossewitch, a member of the working group and one of the editors of Mindful Occupation, said that the broad critique of society and authority present in most of Occupy didn’t always extend to Support.

“Nobody was going to go to the cops after people got into a fight. Yet people were getting forced treatment and psych evaluations, ” Bossewitch said. “Folks are ready to critique the outside world — capitalism, banks — but it’s way harder to look in at their own profession.”

For DuBrul, the emotional tensions that played out at Occupy, as well as the trauma of police beatings, jail, and exposure to chemicals, proved the need to continue and grow The Icarus Project.

“If you know how you are when you’re well, it’s much easier to get back there,” said DuBrul said. “I’m telling you, a movement full of people, an Occupy movement full of people that have a sense of how they are when they’re well, then it’s much easier to work towards what it is that you want. If you’re operating from a place where you’re having a really hard time, it’s much harder to get to where you’re going.”

So where is Icarus going? They hope to formalize the mentorship and education that has already happened, borrowing in some ways from the “sponsorship” approach that groups like Alcoholics Anonymous take.

“We started with a vision of creating a new language and culture about what gets considered mental illness,” DuBrul said. “It’s alright to be ‘mad’ and still be brilliant.”

The schedule of Icarus anniversary events is available at www.theicarusproject.net/10thanniversary

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/12-Tue/18 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.othercinema.com. $6. "Other Cinema:" works by Damon Packard, Marcy Saude, and more, Sat, 8:30.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $8-10.50. "Studio Ghibli Animation Retrospective:" Ponyo (Miyazaki, 2008), Wed, 2:45, 7, English language version; The Cat Returns (Morita, 2002), Wed, 5:10, 9:25, in Japanese with English subtitles; Howl’s Moving Castle (Miyazaki, 2004), Thu, 2, 7, English language version; My Neighbors the Yamadas (Takahata, 1999), Thu, 4:30, 9:35, in Japanese with English subtitles.

CALIFORNIA 2113 Kittredge St, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $8-10.50. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Miyazaki, 1984), Fri-Sat, 1:50, 4:25, 7, 9:35; Kiki’s Delivery Service (Miyazaki, 1989), Sun-Mon, 1:55, 7; Castle in the Sky (Miyazaki, 1986), Sun-Mon, 4:15, 9; Porco Rosso (Miyazaki, 1992), Tue, 2:50, 7; The Cat Returns (Morita, 2002), Tue, 5, 9:10. All films in Japanese with English subtitles.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •The Breakfast Club (Hughes, 1985), Wed, 7, and Animal House (Landis, 1978), Wed, 8:55. •Bad Day at Black Rock (Sturges, 1955), Thu, 2:30, 7, and The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969), Thu, 4:10, 8:35. "Midnights for Maniacs: Trix Are For Kids" •The Iron Giant (Bird, 1999), Fri, 7:30; Labyrinth (Henson, 1986), Fri, 9:20; Phenomena: Unrated Director’s Cut (Argento, 1985), Fri, 11:30. One or all three films, $13. Sutro’s: The Palace at Lands End (Wyrsch, 2011), Sat, 2. Remembering Playland At the Beach (Wyrsch, 2010), Sat, 3:30. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Tarantino, 2003), Sat, 7. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (Tarantino, 2004), Sat, 9:10. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Stuart, 1971), Sun, 2. Punch-Drunk Love (Anderson, 2002), Sun, 5, 8:45. Death Proof (Tarantino, 2007), Sun, 7. Moonrise Kingdom (Anderson, 2012), Mon-Tue, 7, 9:05 (also Tue, 2:30, 4:45).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (Klayman, 2012), call for dates and times. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin, 2012), call for dates and times. The Queen of Versailles (Greenfield, 2012), call for dates and times. 2 Days in New York (Delpy, 2012), call for dates and times. Arbitrage (Jarecki, 2012), Sept 14-20, call for times. Cane Toads: The Conquest 3D (Lewis, 2012), Sept 14-20, call for times. This event, $10-12.

"CINE + MAS SAN FRANCISCO LATINO FILM FESTIVAL" Various Bay Area locations; www.sflatinofilmfestival.com. Most shows $12. Forty features, documentaries, and shorts from Latin America, Spain, and the United States. Sept 13-28.

"FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK" This week: Dolores Park, 19th Ave and Dolores, SF; www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. The Graduate (Nichols, 1967), Sat, 8.

GOETHE-INSTITUT SAN FRANCISCO 530 Bush, SF; (415) 263-8760. $5 suggested donation. "Homage to Romy Schneider:" The Swimming Pool (Dery, 1969), Wed, 7:30.

MANDELA VILLAGE ARTS CENTER 1357 Fifth St, Oakl; www.ticketweb.com. $10. Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Festival, Sat and Sept 21-22, 9. Outdoor screenings with live music and food trucks.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Alternative Visions:" "Nights and Days: A Decade of Lebanese Short Films," Wed, 7. "LA Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema:" Bush Mama (Gerima, 1975), Thu, 7. "Grand Illusions: French Cinema Classics, 1928-1960:" La jour se lève (Carné, 1939), Fri, 7; Casque d’or (Becker, 1952), Fri, 8:50; Hôtel du Nord (Carné, 1938), Sat, 8:20. "Life is Short: Nikkatsu Studios at 100:" Hometown (Mizoguchi, 1930), Sat, 6:30. "A Theater Near You:" Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bilge Ceylan, 2011), Sun, 5.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. Kumaré (Gandhi, 2011), Wed, 6:45, 8:45. Red Hook Summer (Lee, 2012), Wed, 6:45, 9. Freedom House: Street Saviors (Starzenski, 2009), Thu, 7:30. "Projector Magazine Screening," Thu, 8. Beauty is Embarrassing (Berkeley, 2012), Sept 14-20, 7, 8:45 (also Sun, 3:15, 5).

SIBLEY AUDITORIUM Bechtel Engineering Center, UC Berkeley, Berk; nature.berkeley.edu. Free (limited seating). California Forever: The Future of Our State Parks (Vassar, 2012), Thu, 5:30. Followed by a panel discussion with filmmakers and environmentalists.

TANNERY 708 Gilman, Berk; berkeleyundergroundfilms.blogspot.com. Donations accepted. "Berkeley Underground Film Society:" Sixteen Candles (Hughes, 1984), Sun, 7:30.

2969 MISSION 2969 Mission, SF; www.answersf.org. $5-10. Attica (Firestone, 1974), Wed, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. "Femina Potens’ Askew Film and Performance Festival:" "Intersections: LOVE:SEX:PORN:ART: Our Intimate Identity," Thu, 7; "The Birth of Something New: Explorations of Queer Home, Family, and Community," Fri, 7; "In/Visible: Women fighting for visibility and survival in a world that doesn’t always celebrate difference," Sat, 7. Guest-curated by Madison Young of Femina Potens Gallery. *

Psychic Dream Astrology: September 12-18

Andrew Lam
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ARIES

March 21-April 19

Don’t move so quickly that you overwhelm yourself. No matter how inspired your plans are, you need time to process all of their implications and get other people on board, too. If you move too fast this week you will incur pains in your butt that could otherwise be easily avoided. Be the turtle, not the hare, Aries.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

If you don’t know what to do, the best way to cope is by hanging out where you are until new information reveals itself. It’s wicked hard to tolerate uncertainty, especially when you want to get your show on the road, but it’s your wisest course of action. Make your actions count this week, Taurus.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

The thing about growth and freedom is that they come with a price tag. You are responsible for maintaining the good you’ve got going in your life, and for properly forging ahead. There’s no need to do anything this week, but if you work on things, goodness will spill all over the place. Step it up, Gemini.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Don’t change things up because you’re feeling itchy, moonchild. If you act from a place of agitation, you will not be clear and therefore your results are likely to be muddy. Deal with whatever irritates you separately from everything else this week. Get grounded before you set any wheels in motion for best results.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

In order to protect your closest relationships this week, you must be willing to be clear about your needs and limits. Do not expect others to intuit what you want from them or from your life. It is wise and kind to share what you know of yourself with the folks you are intimate with. Be real instead of easy, Leo.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

This week, the best thing you can do for your life is to make sure that the path you set yourself on is one that you will be happy traveling. You alone have to live with the choices you make, so carefully consider what is right for you, instead of letting your circumstances push you around, Virgo.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Don’t be afraid to love, Libra, even when the going gets rough. Having a caring heart and a kind way increases the quality of your life. When people are not right with themselves, it’s hard to be considerate. Don’t allow other people’s crap shrink your commitment to being present and fair. Be the bigger person.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Take chances, Scorpio! This week you shouldn’t strive for okay, you should strive towards awesome. If you are willing to work hard, you can cultivate the conditions that will grow your happiness for the long haul. You can get stuck in “what-if’s” or you can follow your hunches and be in the now. Chose wisely.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

If the people and things you love don’t improve the quality of your life, then what exactly are they doing, Sagittarius? Turn your attention towards where you expect the most joy, and make sure that things are healthy in that arena. You’re ready to start something new, so make sure it’ll improve your life.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

Know yourself so that you might change yourself, Capricorn. Look inside this week and identify what you need to be working towards in the long term, and what you need to be focused on right now. Work towards creating a happiness that comes from all parts of your life playing in concert with each other.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

This week is a great time to put yourself out there and start something new. Don’t expect any meteoric rises to fame or instant success, though. You are being challenged to be patient and pro-active, Aquarius. Trust that the process you are engaged in is as valuable as the goal you’re striving towards.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Make this “take responsibility for myself” week, Pisces. The greatest thing you can do for yourself is to develop a clearer picture of what you want and what you believe you need to do to get there. Communicate with your people and clarify your commitments so that you build foundations that will stand the test of time.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

 

Fall Beer and Wine Events

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Fall Beer and Wine Events

caitlin@sfbg.com

 

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA RENAISSANCE FAIR

What better pairing for your mug of ale than a feisty joust? Oct. 6-7 at the NorCal Ren Fair means the arrival of the St. Hubertus German mercenaries, costumed troops-for-hire who wear tight colored pants. That weekend is also Oktoberfest at the fair — though of course mead, beer, and four types of cider are available throughout the four-week entirety of the bodice-busting. Just make sure you dodge the roving pack of Puritans who will be roaming ye olde paths and pubs.

Saturdays and Sundays, Sat/15 through Oct.1. 10am-6pm, $25/day, $35/weekend, $150/10-day pass. 10021 Pacheco Pass Hwy 152, Gate 6, Hollister. (408) 847-FAIR, www.norcalrenfaire.com

 

BREWS ON THE BAY

Because if anywhere is a good place to get drunk on nice beer, a World War II liberty ship is a fantastic place to get drunk on nice beer. After all, the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien is too large to succumb to the rocking waves of the Bay. Even if it bobbed like a dinghy, this is worth getting wet for: 15 member breweries of the SF Brewer’s Guild pouring all-you-can-drink allotments of over 50 beers, from the companies’ best-sellers to seldom-seen seasonals. Plus live music and food trucks. Ahoy, well-worth-it hangover!

Sat/15, noon-5pm, $50. S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien, Pier 45, SF. www.sfbrewersguild.org

 

SF COCKTAIL WEEK

Ask anyone –- this town has serious cocktailian chops. That’s why (if you’ve got the cash, admission for most events starts around $45) it’s worth checking out this week of artisan tastings, bartender contests, and classes that’ll leave you shaking like a star.

Mon/17-Sun/23, various SF venues. www.sfcocktailweek.com

 

GRENACHE DAY

In the 1980s, a group of NorCal wine producers got together to celebrate the excellency of varietals from France’s Rhone Valley. They called themselves the Rhone Rangers, and set about recreating the wines’ majesty here in the Golden State. Today, they celebrate work well done on internationally-celebrated Grenache Day. Check out the special vino in its red, white, and rose forms through free tastings at 15 wineries in Paso Robles, Santa Cruz’s Bonny Doon Vineyard, Santa Rosa’s Sheldon Wines, and Sacramento’s Caverna 57.

Sept. 21, various venues, free. www.rhonerangers.org

 

EAT REAL FESTIVAL

You know you can nosh away at this fest, which celebrates the best in local, sustainable nourishment — but be sure you wash it down in style. Eat Real offers a chance to sample 20 Bay beers, like sustainable Berkeley pourers Bison Brewing and its beer garden co-curator Adam Lamoreaux’s Oakland-born Linden Street Brewery. 15 NorCal wineries will be represented as well. And no festival markups here — all adult beverages go for $5 per cup.

Sept. 21 1-9pm; Sept. 22, 10:30am-9pm; Sept. 23, 10:30am-5pm; free. Jack London Square, First St. and Broadway, Oakl. www.eatrealfest.com

 

TOUR DE FAT

The beer and bike carnival of the year is back, with all its usual circus magic and a costumed bike parade under the trees of GGP. Onstage, Fat Tire beer has another full musical line-up planned: Los Amigos Invisibles, He’s My Brother She’s My Sister, Yo-Yo People, and more. Sip the Colorado brand’s brews, and stick around for the end, when a lucky car owner trades their wheels in for a bike during a elaborate yearly ritual.

Sept. 22, 10:30-5pm, free. Lindley Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.newbelgium.com/events/tour-de-fat

 

LAGUNITAS DAYTIME PARTY

Retire to the sunny patio of downtown Oakland’s best beer store-pub to meet the masterminds behind Marin’s Lagunitas Brewing Co. They’re not coming empty-handed, either — the label’s new session IPA, named for the time in which such things are best drunk (Daytime) will be on the pour, lubricating what is sure to be a fascinating conversation with local beer greats.

Sept. 22, 1-6pm, free. Beer Revolution, 464 Third St., Oakl. (510) 452-2337, www.beer-revolution.com

 

OKTOBERFEST BY THE BAY

Snap them lederhosen and rub your belly — you’ll need all the digestive help you can get after this perfectly pleasant weekend of steins, sausages, and oompah. Now with two sessions on Saturday to avoid beer gut overcrowding!

Sept.28, 5pm-midnight; Sept. 29, 11am-5pm and 6pm-midnight; Sept. 30, 11am-6pm, $25-75/session. Pier 49, SF. (888) 746-7522, www.oktoberfestbythebay.com

 

DRINK GREAT BEERS TASTING PARTY

Beer Connoisseur magazine sponsors this all-you-can-taste Saturday extravaganza in the swanky climes of Blu Restaurant. Taste little-known brews against old favorites, and discover which flavor ways really fill your pint.

Sept. 29, 3-6pm, $60-85. Blu Restaurant, 747 Market, fourth floor, SF. www.drinkgreatbeers.com

 

LOCA UNCORKED

Because the Blue Angels will be less (?) terrifying with a bellyful of California wine in you, head out to this Bay Area exploration of the wines of Lodi, a small town tucked just between Sacramento and Stockton that is flush with wine producers. Your admission gets you tastes of 200 (!) Lodi wines, tons of snacks, and a front row seat for Fleet Week’s aerial shenanigans.

Oct. 6, 1-5pm, $55-65. 291 Avenue of the Palms, Treasure Island, SF. www.locauncorked.com

 

Our Weekly Picks: September 12-18

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 12

Zero1 Biennial

This week, when the weather is right, SF designer Ishky will coordinate a massive 3.14-ecetera to be written by five planes over the Bay’s skyscape. The work heralds the arrival of Zero1 Biennial, sure to be a different look at Silicon Valley. SFMOMA, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Stanford will all be participating in the tech-art fest, but “Seeking Silicon Valley” is a good place to start exploring. Artists from 11 countries have created innovative odes to computerlandia at Zero1 Garage, a specially-designed new permanent art space in San Jose. Expect virtual tunnels connecting cross-Atlantic museums and the first dot com rise and fall, as interpreted through shots of a vertiginous Argentinian mountain. (Caitlin Donohue)

Through Dec. 8, Various times and Bay Area venues

“Seeking Silicon Valley”

Zero1 Garage

439 First St., San Jose

www.zero1biennial.org

 

Chelsea Wolfe

Like a gloomier incarnation of Julia Holter, or PJ Harvey with a stoner-goth edge, Chelsea Wolfe has a knack for sounding like everyone and no-one else, all at once. On last year’s Apokalypsis, her wispy, high-pitched vocals stood in stark opposition to the record’s sonic atmosphere: robust, foreboding drums and guitars a la Slint, wrapped up in lush electronics, layers upon layers of reverb, and the vague ethos of the hypnagogic pop movement. One of those “weird” records whose weirdness is rendered highly palatable by its confident execution, Wolfe’s debut was one of last year’s most compelling rock statements. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Crypts, Dia Dear, DJ S4NtA_MU3rTE, DJ Nako

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


THURSDAY 13

Femina Potens’ ASKEW Film and Performance Festival

Should your post-convention feminist outrage still be clouding the edges of your vision, mark your calendars for a weekend of smart, sex-positive female-made films and readings at YBCA. Tonight, take in multimedia memoir presentations by adult industry stars-authors Oriana Small and Lorelei Lee, then a documentary on SF strippers’ fight for justice in the workplace by Hiwa B., an ex-dancer herself. Later this weekend, Madison Young’s doc on her first year as a mama in SF sex culture awaits (Sat/14), and Mollena Williams’ interactive short on the ways racism can emerge in the world of BDSM play (Sun/15). Forget “legitimate rape,” it’s time to start developing our own vision of the way we want the world to work. (Donohue)

Through Sun/15, $10/screening

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Nommo Ogo

The Bay Area is overloaded with ambient electronic acts inviting you to lose yourself in their Pink Floyd-on-codeine haze, but Nommo Ogo’s attention to detail sets it apart from the pack. Balancing old-school, Cluster-meets-Zelda synth tones with live guitars, field recordings, jittery percussion, and the occasional buried vocal track, its records are unusually dynamic, and compositionally advanced, for “ambient” fare. This Thursday, the Oakland-via-Anchorage outfit will unleash some new material, as it celebrates the release of its forthcoming LP, Endless Dream, at Bottom of the Hill. Will the new album follow the sturdy progression of the back catalogue, or will it present a bold change of direction? (Kaplan)

With Candle Labra, Secret Sidewalk

9pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com


FRIDAY 14

John Cage Celebration: PICO

You have one chance this weekend to wish John Cage a Happy 100th Birthday. With a razor mind, often barely visible behind his affable façade, Cage and Merce Cunningham turned inside out cherished traditions about listening and seeing. A European composer once asked Cage whether it was not difficult for him write music so far away from the Tradition. His reply: “it must be hard for you write music so close to the Tradition.” PICO: Performance Indeterminate Cage Opera, based on Cage’s Fontana Mix — less a score than a manual for proceeding — is a very Cagean enterprise with live and recorded music, three channels of video, 20 plus dancers, and audience participation (should you be so inclined). PICO also pays tribute to kindred spirits Marcel Duchamp and Nam June Paik (Rita Felciano).

7:30pm, $7

Berkeley Art Museum

2626 Bancroft Way, Berk.

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

Rustie

Who needs restraint, or tastefulness, when you’ve got Rustie? Like fellow producers Hudson Mohawke and Lone, the Glasgow-based beatmaker specializes in a high-gloss brand of dubstep-tinged electronica that overwhelms with its kitchen-sink approach. Much like an alternate Sonic the Hedgehog soundtrack, as envisioned by the venerable Warp imprint, his debut LP, Glass Swords, was one of 2011’s most ecstatically go-for-broke records. Garish, fluorescent synths compete relentlessly for the spotlight, anchored (just barely) by grooving, thrashing percussion, on a hugely celebratory record with the irresistible energy of a basketful of puppies. One can only imagine the potential of Rustie’s maximalist approach in a live setting. (Kaplan)

With Kode9, Obey City, Anna Love, Dreams, Dials vs. Bogi, The Slayers Club Crew

10pm, $20

1015 Folsom, SF

(415) 264-1015

www.1015.com/onezerothree

 

Phenomena

Everyone’s heard of 1977’s Suspiria, but Dario Argento’s filmography is full of should-be horror classics — including 1985’s Phenomena, which returns to Suspiria‘s boarding-school milieu but shifts the action to Switzerland, where the new girl in class is the troubled daughter (Jennifer Connelly) of a movie star. She sleepwalks, she communicates with insects, she befriends a local professor (Donald Pleasence, Halloween‘s Dr. Loomis) and his chimpanzee companion, she runs afoul of the local murderer … man, growing up is tough! With lamé’d costumes by Giorgio Armani and songs by Iron Maiden, Motörhead, and Argento faves Goblin, Phenomena is a gloriously ’80s relic. It screens with animated classic The Iron Giant (1999) and young Connelly’s Muppet-tastic breakout film, 1986’s Labyrinth. (Cheryl Eddy)

“Midnites for Maniacs: Trix Are For Kids Triple Bill”

7:30pm, $13

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.midnitesformaniacs.com

 

J.B. Smoove

After starting his career on Russell Simmons’s Def Comedy Jam in the ’90s, J.B. Smoove has since solidified his status as a foolproof secret weapon within the comedy world. Uncredited appearances and writing work on Saturday Night Live, in addition to scene-stealing supporting roles in films such as Pootie Tang, helped land him his current role as Leon (“Pepitone, Pepitone!”), Larry David’s opportunistic house guest/sidekick on recent seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm. As a stand-up performer, Smoove combines physical comedy with hilarious storytelling, courtesy of his unmistakable vocal delivery. (Landon Moblad)

8 and 10:15pm; Sat/15, 7:30 and 9:45pm, $25

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com


SATURDAY 15

Los Straitjackets

Nashville, Tenn.’s Los Straitjackets have been pairing genuine musicianship with over-the-top gimmick for more than 20 years and 11 studio albums. True, quality songwriting and matching costumes sounds oxymoronic, but Los Straitjackets defy common sense. The foursome plays instrumental, surf-inspired rock music, with an extensive list of covers, including “Deck the Halls” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but their original material is where the band shines. During performances, they dress identically in all black with gold Aztec-inspired medallions, differentiated only by customized luchador masks. Not to worry, they also have synchronized choreography. (Haley Zaremba)

With Daddy-O Grande, Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys

9pm, $20

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com


SUNDAY 16

Faux Queen Pageant: The Next Generation

Now, San Francisco cherishes an exceptional portion of the world’s most glamorous and inventive faux queens. But in 1995, when Diet Popstitute and Ruby Toosday unleashed the Faux Queen Pageant, there were few outlets for “drag queens trapped in women’s bodies.” The doors FQP helped throw open make its 2012 reincarnation all the more intriguing, as SF’s big and brassy faux queen contest returns under the auspices of Bea Dazzler, Holy McGrail, and the Klubstitute Kollective. With MCs Leigh Crow (as Captain Kirk) and Trixxie Carr at the helm, and a firmament of local star judges (Heklina, Fauxnique, Birdie Bob Watt, Cricket Bardot, Ruby Toosday, L. Ron Hubby and Deena Davenport), Faux Queen Pageant: The Next Generation promises to take you where no woman has gone before. (Robert Avila)

8pm, $15

DNA Lounge

375 Eleventh St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.fauxqueenpageant.com


TUESDAY 18

Mark Bittman

Veteran New York Times opinion and food columnist Mark Bittman claims he’s not a chef and he’s never been professionally trained. Yet, his How to Cook Everything is recognized as a veritable recipe bible for curious home chefs. Bittman, nicknamed “The Minimalist” for his unfussy approach to cooking, delves even further into the fundamentals with this year’s updated How to Cook Everything: The Basics. The newest edition is an encyclopedia of tips, ranging from how to set up a pantry to how to tell when particular foods are done cooking (always important for those house parties). As if writing for the Times and authoring more than a dozen cookbooks was not enough, The Minimalist debuted his new Cooking Channel show of the same name earlier this fall. (Kevin Lee)

In conversation with Jessica Battilana

7:30pm, $22–$27

Herbst Theatre

401 Van Ness

(415) 392-4400

www.cityboxoffice.com


TUESDAY 18

Paloma Faith

Thanks to a string of hit singles such as “Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?” along with starring roles in several films, including Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, acting opposite Tom Waits, British singer Paloma Faith is a noted star over in her native UK. Fusing modern pop with sultry ’50s rock sensibilities and a classy, retro-inspired look, the 27-year-old Faith is hitting the United States for her first ever tour, in support of her new album, Fall To Grace. Fans can be sure that next time she comes around, it will be in a much bigger venue. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell St., SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 71 Stevenson, Second Floor, SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

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