Lusty Lady

Sailing through

Michael Redmond
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3
Sailing through

culture@sfbg.com

THE WEEKNIGHTER It opened a couple years ago at this point. Someone had said to me, “Hey man you been to Southern Pacific Brewing yet?” I hadn’t even heard of it, “What the fuck is a Southern Pacific Brewing?” I asked. A giant, 10,000-square-foot brewpub had just opened almost directly behind my regular bar, The Homestead, and, like, two blocks from my apartment — and I hadn’t even heard of it. Well maybe it’s because it’s not my apartment anymore, I thought to myself. I’d recently moved out of the neighborhood after breaking up with my long-term girlfriend and was sleeping on my cousin’s couch… for a few months.

You know, just some SF shit.

It seemed like my life, my neighborhood, and my city were all spiraling, not exactly out of control, but past mere comprehension. Besides the upheaval of my personal life, San Francisco was just beginning to swell with some kind of sickness, one that it had somehow survived a decade before. And my neighborhood, the Mission, seemed to be the place on San Francisco’s body where the sores of the Money Virus were showing the most. Restaurants were opening on Valencia faster than zippers at the (soon-to-be-closed) Lusty Lady, and little shops and bookstores that had been around for decades were getting tossed out with the trash.

But the thing that worried me the most was that I, Broke-Ass Stuart, the guy who likes to think he knows this city better than anyone, hadn’t even heard of Southern Pacific Brewing. “Have I lost a step?” I wondered. I knew I had to check it out.

All anyone had really said about Southern Pacific Brewing (620 Treat Ave, SF. www.southernpacificbrewing.com) was that it was HUGE! The ceiling is probably 2.5 stories high and the old warehouse space holds not just the bar-restaurant but also the entire brewing operation as well. I noticed all this when I walked in that first night, despite the fact that I was pretty trashed. I’d downed some booze at Dear Mom, banged a few back at Bender’s, hoovered some shots at the Homestead, and then sauntered into Southern Pacific. I was drowning in heartbreak and — that friend’s couch — numbing backache.

“It is huge,” I said to whichever of my no-goodnik friends I was with that night. We took in the environs. There was a sizable crowd, lots of good-looking people who probably would’ve been terrified to go that deep into the Mission a few years before. Thrillist or something like that had just blown the place up that day so all the Chads and Madisons from other parts of the city were there to explore a “hot new neighborhood spot,” I figured.

And then I looked around some more and saw plenty of Mission locals and natives whom I’d spent my twenties running around the neighborhood dive bars with. It was a good mix of everything the Mission was at the moment, for better and for worse. I liked the place immediately.

A bit later I ran into a girl I hadn’t seen in awhile and we talked about the city and its changes and about all the things that happen to you while you’re trying to grow up. And then it was last call and my friends were gone so the girl took me home with her. I hadn’t slept in a bed in a long time, so for at least that night my heartache and my backache were put to rest.

Stuart Schuffman aka Broke-Ass Stuart is a travel writer, poet, and TV host. You can find his online shenanigans at www.brokeassstuart.com

 

Blow your mind

Michael Redmond
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6
Blow your mind

rebecca@sfbg.com

SEX Examples of Americans’ obsession with sex abound. It seemed the mainstream media would never get over Miley Cyrus’ ostentatious twerking at the Video Music Awards. Politician Anthony Weiner managed to live down his sexting scandal, only to mar his comeback with still more sexting. Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” broke records for its searing popularity, but its rape-y message inspired a feminist parody, substituting the lyrics “you’re a good girl” with “you’re a douchebag.”

One researcher in the field of human sexuality estimates that 95 percent of all the sexual activity humans have — in every society — is for pleasure, not for reproduction. Despite the fact that almost everyone is apparently having sex for the sake of sex, we still live in a country where certain public schools stick to abstinence-only sex education with zero information about birth control. Meanwhile, right-wing opposition to women’s reproductive rights threatens to send laws governing access to abortion and contraceptives hurtling back to the Dark Ages.

Given the ongoing cultural clash, it’s fitting that San Francisco — famous for its sexual institutions like the Folsom Street Fair, Kink.com, Good Vibrations, and the Lusty Lady (may she rest in peace) — is poised to lead the way in offering one of the only Ph.D. programs in human sexuality nationwide.

San Francisco already boasts numerous pioneers in sexual education and related studies. City College of San Francisco, for example, began offering one of the first gay literature courses in the country in 1972, leading to the 1989 establishment of the first Gay and Lesbian Studies Department nationwide. And the National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University was created to promote sexual literacy, with the goal of replacing misinformation about sexuality and dispelling negative attitudes with evidence-based research on sexual health, education and rights.

The newest Ph.D. program will be housed at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS, www.ciis.edu), and is scheduled to get under way in 2014. Gilbert Herdt, an anthropologist who founded SF State’s National Sexuality Resource Center and has been working in the field of human sexuality for some 35 years, is the program director.

Formerly a professor at Stanford and the University of Chicago, Herdt had long dreamed of creating a Ph.D. program with a multidisciplinary approach to human sexuality, an effort he believes would have been stymied a decade ago by political resistance.

“A lot of people are shocked when they realize there is only one Ph.D. program in the United States on human sexuality,” Herdt notes, referencing a program offered at Philadelphia’s Widener University focused on sex education. The CIIS program will be the first accredited doctoral program in human sexuality in the western United States.

It took decades for women’s studies and gender studies to be considered Ph.D.-worthy academic disciplines, Herdt points out. But when it comes to this endeavor, “there’s one big difference: Human sexuality remains a taboo in the United States.”

Consider this. In the Netherlands, Germany and France, sex education in schools can begin as early as kindergarten. Here in the US, states such as Florida still lack comprehensive programs offering in-depth information on sexually transmitted disease or contraception. It might not come as much of a surprise that Western Europe has lower rates of unwanted teen pregnancy, HIV and STDs.

Sex ed was eroded as part of a political backlash. “In the ’70s, there began to be a series of moral campaigns — some were directed against abortion … some were directed against homosexuality,” Herdt notes. “When Reagan was elected, it ushered in a whole new social campaign — and for the first time, opposition to sex education and opposition to abortion was joined, and served as a bridge to connect different groups who had previously never been working together: groups that were against gun control, groups that were against abortion rights, and groups that were against homosexuality.”

All of which has led to the current state of affairs, and as things stand, “I consider the United States one of the most backward countries when it comes to comprehensive sexual education and positive values regarding sexual behavior,” Herdt says. But he’s hoping to play a role in changing that.

The Ph.D. program at CIIS seeks to train a new generation of experts in human sexuality with a pair of concentrations. The first centers on clinical practice for contemporary practitioners, marriage and family therapists or psychiatrists. The current training requirement for clinicians on human sexuality is a measly eight hours, which “just shows the disregard that society has for sexual pleasure, and sexual wellbeing and relationship formation, and so on,” in Herdt’s view.

The second concentration centers on sexual policy leadership. Asked to identify some of the most pressing policy issues of concern to sexologists, the program director said existing gaps in comprehensive sex education is a top priority, and predicted transgender rights would intensify as a major issue. “I also feel that the Republican assault on women’s bodies, women’s contraceptive and reproductive rights — this is a huge and very dangerous area.”

Herdt became involved with CIIS through a conference called Expanding the Circle, which merges the LGBT community with individuals working in higher education from throughout the country. Prior to that, he ran the National Sexuality Resource Center at SF State. Asked why he’d looked to CIIS rather than a major university to house the program, Herdt responded, “these large premier institutions, such as Stanford and Berkeley — you know, they have many, many extremely important programs … But they do have a more traditional emphasis when it comes to disciplines.”

At CIIS, on the other hand, he found openness to the kind of academic program he envisioned. Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington, columnist and author of numerous books on sex, will be a professor there along with Sean Cahill, director of Health Policy Research at The Fenway Institute and co-author of LGBT Youth in America’s Schools.

Promoting sexual literacy is just as important of a program goal as influencing policy, Herdt said. “Americans really continue to have very sex-negative attitudes when it comes to the body, the integration of sexuality with all the elements of their lives. So many people feel that sex is fragmented in their lives, and they don’t have a holistic sense of wellbeing.”

While advancements in neuroscience, psychology and other forms of research have all served to further our understanding of sexuality, Herdt bristles at the idea that it is all hard-wired.

“I’m very much aware that Americans continue to have a view that when it comes to the important things in sexuality, they’re all hard-wired in the brain,” he says. “I do not agree with that view. I believe that the most important things in human sexuality are the things we learn in society. The values we learn, the ethics, the way we can form relationships. The way we learn to love. Or not to love, to hate. These are such tremendously important issues in human sexuality and human development.” He added, “Let’s put it in its proper way: It’s interactive.”

Live nude girls say goodnight

Michael Redmond
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11
Live nude girls say goodnight

rebecca@sfbg.com

When we caught up with Prince$$, who has spent more than a decade at the Lusty Lady — not just as a dancer but in roles ranging from marketing guru to shop steward for the peep show’s unionized dancers — she wasn’t in her favorite over-the-knee platform boots or a classic burlesque getup.

Instead, her dyed-purple hair was tied back, and she was taking a moment to catch her breath between organizing a hasty archiving project, pulling together the Lusty’s final farewell bash, and absorbing the earth shattering news that the famed North Beach strip club would be closing its doors for good on Sept. 2 after a storied 37-year run in San Francisco.

What’s the difference between the Lusty Lady and any other strip club in the city? For one, it’s earned a political rep with its co-op ethos, feminist vibe, and array of dancers showcasing all shapes, sizes, colors, aesthetics, tattoos, and body piercings. It was even the subject of a 2000 documentary, Live Nude Girls Unite!, which chronicled the mid-1990s unionization effort.

“Without the Lusty, there’s no alternative, non-homogenized club,” says Prince$$, who never leaves home without fliers promoting the peep show and even carries around a Lusty Lady pen in her purse. “It would be like if every restaurant in San Francisco was shut down and all you got was TGI Friday’s. It’s like comparing Zeitgeist to Ruby Skye.”

With a dingier interior than its flashy counterparts, the Lusty is a place that might stage such events as a (sexy) May the Fourth Star Wars themed bash, a (sexy) Fleet Week celebration with pirates and singing mermaids, or a (sexy) Kiss-themed holiday blowout. This isn’t your black-tie, $50-cover, arrive-in-a-limo sort of establishment, observes Prince$$, who has also worked in other clubs and said she chose her name because “that was the silliest stripper name I could think of.”

A little over a year ago, she found herself shouldering the Lusty’s legacy after nearly everyone else split, because it looked like the peep show might be toast. “I was literally left holding a handful of keys. I was left just holding this thing. No one would take it, and I said, I will. It was my life for most of last year. You make a promise, and you keep it,” she added.

But the Lusty’s ship was already listing dangerously then, and now it has finally capsized. And of course it all comes down to money, honey. In an odd twist, the Lusty’s landlord, Roger Forbes, also happens to own every other strip club in San Francisco through his parent company, Déjà Vu Entertainment. That includes The Hustler Club, a strip joint sandwiched up against the iconic Lusty in the city’s red light district on Kearny and Broadway streets.

“For about 10 years now, the Lusty Lady has been paying twice market value for our property here,” explained Scott Farrell, who stepped in as a management consultant earlier this year in a last-ditch effort to help save the club, which he’d initially had an eye toward buying. “When I came into the picture, the rent was $16,500” per month for the 3,423 square foot nightclub, he explained. Yet he’d seen similar properties rent nearby for $8,400.

A porn actor and member of the BDSM community himself, Farrell said he’d engaged in negotiations with Forbes to reduce the rent, which he says would have allowed the club to launch a webcam project to bring in extra revenue, spruce up the interior, and get back on track financially. But unpaid back rent and a lengthy back-and-forth eventually resulted in Forbes cutting off the dialogue.

“I called him and said, ‘can we sit down and talk?'” Farrell recalled. “His words were: ‘I don’t care anymore. I just want you guys out.” Forbes could not be reached for comment.

You might call the loss of the Lusty another nail in the coffin for San Francisco’s famously freakish wild side, an element that feels thinner with each passing day.

“People have this vision, where they’re trying to turn San Francisco into a cross between Los Angeles and New York, and trying to make the clubs ‘pure,'” Prince$$ reflected. “We weren’t trying to be that. We were trying to be different.” Now faced with the end of an era, Prince$$ said she felt as if she’d just stepped off a rollercoaster. But she had one more task: preparation for the world’s only unionized worker-owned peep show co-op’s last lascivious hurrah on Sept. 1, the Lusty’s last night. From there, it will be a matter of sorting out the fate of the famed neon pink sign and other historic components after it’s all been dismantled. “Everyone is going to want to buy a piece,” she said, “and all the dancers are going to want to keep a piece.”

Hot sexy events: Nerd boobs, Bill Gates’ condom quest, and the Sheagle = landed

Andrew Lam
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0
Hot sexy events: Nerd boobs, Bill Gates’ condom quest, and the Sheagle = landed

Hey, dudes who don’t like condoms, has Bill Gates got your back or what? During the same month that the Pope Emeritus reincarnates as a wall of condoms, the tech bajillionaire has donated the change he found in his couch ($100,000) to the Global Health research foundation Bill and wife Melinda founded through their foundation to developing a rubber that feels better on penises.

Yes, we know, yet more money that focuses on male reproductive health. But for those who regularly find themselves in contact with penis-bearers, the promise of never hearing another “but I can’t feeeel it with the condom on,” will be a definite boon to that largest of sexual organs: our brain, which non-scientifically speaking, shrivels up and dies a little from so much whining in bed. (Also, penis bearers? Golf claps for science, but in the meantime you might benefit from not jerking it so damn hard. Try a Fleshlight.)

Chat about the politics of sex research, or forget about politics altogether, at this week’s sexy events:

Sheagle

A night presented by the female-identified kinksters of San Francisco, but open to attendees in the newly (more or less) re-opened space of this beloved leather bar. The monthly party will benefit a different female-identified organization — this month it’s the SF girls of Leather, who rad work you can read about in this Guardian cover story on their cute kink from a few years ago. 

Wed/27, 8pm-2am, free. Eagle, 298 12th St., SF. www.sf-eagle.com

“Bling My Vibe” awards ceremony 

When Good Vibrations contacted me about crafting an project from a vibrator for their March art contest I said: sure. And though every time I’ve been back to see it proudly installed in the Polk Street store’s gallery/education space there’s been a class going on, I have nothing but the utmost faith that the room full of Conehead vibes, vibrators fashioned into magical steeds, and Ninja Turtles vibes (HuffPo has a nice slideshow if you’re curious) is an uplifting experience. Today, the top crafters take home gift certificates so that they can continue to make sweet projects with Good Vibes gear.

Fri/29, 6-8pm, free. Good Vibrations, 1620 Polk, SF. www.goodvibes.com

Nerd Nite at the Lusty Lady

SF’s only co-op strip club welcomes sci-fi freaks tonight. Lusty dancer Pandora wrote us in an email that the Lusty theme nights are all about costumes: “Well, as much as you can costume and still be naked, which as it turns out is quite a bit. 😉 Sometimes music or activities like naked Twister, naked light saber battle. naked karaoke. Pretty much anything fun, and put naked in front of it.” Check out this video for more on why the peep shows and VIP booths here rock:

Fri/29, 8am-3pm. The Lusty Lady, 1033 Kearny, SF. www.lustylady.com

Spring Breakers 

“Why you acting ‘spicious?” The ATL twins, James Franco Gucci Mane, Vanessa Hudgens, blatant perversion of typical crime movie gender roles — Harmony Korine’s latest cult classic is the sexiest film of 2013 and you should see it before you get secondhand sick of the catchphrases. Which reminds me, “spring break 4eva.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVvn9T6bqls

Various Bay Area theaters

Goodbye Gauley Mountain screening and dinner

Feminist porn pioneer Annie Sprinkle and partner Beth Stephens premiere the couple’s documentary on their ecosexual relationship with the Appalachian mountains and the crusade to stop destructive mining practices. Come early for the pre-screening vegan Appalachian dinner.

Trailer Goodbye Gauley Mtn: An Ecosexual Love Story from Elizabeth Stephens on Vimeo.

Sat/30, dinner 6:30pm, screening 7pm, $10-100. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org

Local blogs fumble story of sex worker activist named legislative aide

Andrew Lam
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35

We were thrilled to bits at the Guardian when St. James Infirmary’s longtime program director and former Harvey Milk Club president Stephany Joy Ashley was named Supervisor David Campos’ new legislative aide. Ashley was a speaker on our “Feminism in the Bay Area Today” panel discussion and worked on a number of political campaigns, from John Avalos’ bid for mayor to Rafael Mandleman’s 2010 run for District 8 supervisor. 

However, local blogs read her primarily as a former stripper. “Lusty Activist is the New Campos Aide,” read Misson Loc@l’s headline. “David Campos’ New Aide Is a Former Lusty Lady Dancer,” read the headline on SFist. Way to focus on the important stuff, guys.

Of course, Ashley was a stripper at SF’s amazing worker-owned strip club — six years ago. And we think it’s awesome that we live in a town that doesn’t separate sex workers from the political world. And actually, the Mission Loc@l headline isn’t really indicative of the article’s content, which does focus on Ashley’s impressive qualifications.

But, the fact of the matter is that “Lusty activist” and “former Lusty Lady dancer” are really insufficient descriptors for someone who has continued to play really important roles in the community since her days at the Lusty. It’s hardly the most unique thing about Ashley either, given her achievements since. 

We get it local bloggers, we’re all looking for clicks. But let’s not sensationalize sex work — not to mention completly legal sex work — anymore. This story was already awesome without it.

Hollie Stevens lived a big life that was tragically cut short

Sasha Cuttler
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3
Hollie Stevens lived a big life that was tragically cut short

When a slowly unfolding tragedy strikes the young and energetic, fate seems especially cruel, a notion I haven’t been able to shake since learning that my friend Hollie Stevens, a 30-year-old porn star, died this week after a year-long bout with cancer that had spread from her breasts to her brain.

Hollie moved here from the Midwest in her early 20s for a career in porn that included more than 170 films, and she had an infectious zest for life and a strong and expansive sense of her community. She was proudly living her dream, parlaying her film career into an entertaining column on porn life in Girls and Corpses magazine, art projects, and speaking gigs.

I met Hollie in 2008 when working on “Cue the clowns,” a Guardian cover story on the burgeoning local indie circus scene, a memorable meeting that I even included in the article. Dressed as a clown at a Bohemian Carnival event, I asked this statuesque blond if she liked clowns, and she responded that she was a clown and had starred in a film called Clown Porn, a cult classic in this admittedly narrow porn genre.

Hollie combined a fun-loving free spirit with a down-to-earth confidence that made her easy to befriend, as other friends of mine at the time also found. While doing often-extreme BDSM porn shoots at the Armory for Kink.com and live shows at Lusty Lady, she also became a regular in the tight crew that gathers on the north side of Baker Beach and a volunteer with How Weird Street Faire and other community events.

We’d lost touch when I heard last year that she was diagnosed with stage three metastatic breast cancer, which first claimed those beautiful breasts and then her luscious life. But our mutual friends said she was a fighter who maintained her spirit and sense of humor throughout, an inspiration to friends and admirers who held a series of fundraisers around San Francisco to help pay her medical expenses. Just last month, she married her love, artist and comedian Eric Cash, while in the hospital.

Hollie was one of those classic San Francisco transplants, who made a real home and family of her adopted city and lived an unconventional life to its fullest potential. She will be greatly missed by many admirers and kindred spirits.

 

 

 

Lusty for the Ladies? Worker-owned strip club still open, but needs your help

Andrew Lam
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18
Lusty for the Ladies? Worker-owned strip club still open, but needs your help

I have to apologize for not frothing up the waters with my own account of everyone’s favorite (and only) worker-owned strip club the Lusty Lady being in peril of having to shut its doors. I was gallivanting about on a world tour — find my list of illegal places in Berlin to trespass on here — and re-emerged on this side of the bridge to hysterical accounts that the classic, unionized titty joint was going under.

It’s no secret that the Guardian has a tawdry, longstanding affair with the Lusty — so I made a quick call to long-time Lusty Lorelei. Upshot: the club is kind-of safe for the moment, but it’s ready to grind it out for your singles.

“We would like to keep going, we would like to improve the business,” Lorelei told me. “We are looking for investors, but if that doesn’t work we’ll have to look for buyers.” Anyone willing to support their local, female-empowering, size-positive, all-inclusive adult club?

Here’s what happened: the Lusty has been struggling with finances for awhile. “It’s been funky and we just weren’t doing that great,” said Lorelei. The club has struggled, she continued, with perceptions that the private peep show booths were unclean, staff was unfriendly, and that dancers just weren’t working it out enough. “You can’t just go up there in your Payless heels and no makeup. Customers would come in and it would be like, sad trombone.” 

So when a company called Millenium Group offered $25,000 for the beleagured club, some staffers thought their ship had come in. Not Lorelei. “$25,000? That’s insulting. Really? We could come up with that!”

Nonetheless, a hasty employee vote was convened over email one weekend, side-stepping (Lorelei says) the informal co-op protocol that such matters necessitate a couple weeks for employee-owners to think them over. The Lusties decided against selling, and in the decisive moment many of the staff members who had been in favor of the sale split. 

Previous press accounts that reported that the employee-owners would be held financially liable if the club went bankrupt are erroneous, says Lorelei, who actually sees this moment of high drama as an opportunity. The mediocre service and hygiene reflected a complacency that a passel of new hires, she hopes the club has left behind. “The girls are hot, the theater is clean,” she laughs. 

The club is looking into starting up webcam shows, and has already started offering lapdances at specified times. Some of the dancers have started up a radio show Wednesdays from 9pm to midnight on 107.7 The Bone called Ask a Hot Chick, a great customer interaction tactic. Check out the Lusty Lady’s Indie Go Go page (side note: Kickstarter is not down with “adult” causes) to donate towards the club’s continued existence — the campaign will be active for the next day or so.

Or here’s a better plan: head down to the club this weekend for the club’s brand-new lapdance parties. You know the drill — see you a sex-positive, well-proportioned hottie and let her take you for a spin in a booth. 

Lusty Lady lapdance parties

Fridays and Saturdays, 9pm-2am

The Lusty Lady

1033 Kearny, SF

(415) 391-3991

www.lustyladysf.com

 

Hot sexy events April 5-11

Andrew Lam
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0

Oh sweet, fluffy bunny rabbit. In other, less frisky climes, your ilk is heralded as the perfect harbinger of spring. And also though we respect your frenetic rates of copulation, we humbly suggest a more apropos sign of the season: radical faerie Cobra’s new art show at gay health center Magnet, featuring both carvings and tapestries devoted to that (second)most fertile of creatures, the penis. 

Yay or nay? Whatever your response to this humble re-branding suggestion, this week brings just the exultant sex event for you. Hunky Jesus contests? Drinking til you barf with your fellow leathemen? Read on, bunny dearest, for this week’s sex events.  

Act Up Resurrection March

Happy Good Friday! It’s time to storm the oldest Catholic Church in town, deliver the ashes of AIDS victims to its doorstep, and have a bunch of queer nuns exorcise them of the evils the Pope has commited by restricting access to condoms! Today’s march, a commemoration of 25 years of AIDS advocacy rebels Act Up, will start at the Wells Fargo by the 16th Street BART station to highlight the bank’s predatory role in gentrification (a phenomenon that regularly unhouses AIDS patients), then go by the church en route to the Castro, where a list of the names of activists who died during the AIDS era will be read.  

Fri/6 4pm-7pm, free

March start: 16th St. and Mission, SF

www.thesisters.org

“Sacred Cocks: Cobra’s Erotic Nature Based Carvings & Tapestries”

Word on the street is that Cobra has been whittling away at willies since he was but a babe, all part of an effort to bring to light “ancient faggot history, which is intertwined with nature,” says the artist himself. Come for looks at lustful satyrs, and a break from all the hard body party flyers that blanket the Castro.

Opening reception: Fri/6 8pm-10pm, free

Magnet

4122 18th St., SF

www.magnetsf.org

“Pretending to be Free of Time: Phyllis Christopher”

… Or really take a break from the hard body party flyers that blanket the Castro at this exhibit of erotic photographer Phyllis Christopher’s work. The well known shutterbug will be showing her close-up snippets of the heavy-breathing BDSM life. A flexed wrist here, a drop of blood there — when the act itself left up to the imagination of the beholder, Christopher is lucky that this show is taking place at one of the centers of SF perv culture. 

Through April 29

Opening reception: Fri/6 6pm, free

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

Easter Bunny beer bust

Someone oughta do a study on condom sales during Catholic holidays. We’re just saying. At any rate, one of Folsom Street’s finest is having this all-you-can-drink booze-a-thon in the hopes that your altar boy guilt will translate into titillating party repartee. 

Sun/8 3pm-7pm, $8

KOK Bar

1225 Folsom, SF

www.kokbarsf.com

Pumps and Circumstance

They’re 33 years old and still hanging out at Dolores Park — so what’s there to commemorate? This isn’t your crusty roommate we’re talking about, this is the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The purveyors of white face majick, radical queer protest, and lotsa yucks want to celebrate 33 years of troupe-dom with their “traditional” performance at Hipster Beach, and damned if we’re not going to humor them to the best of our abilities. The presentation will be marked by the ever-fresh “Hunky Jesus” contest, so even that roommate of yours has something to celebrate. 

Sun/8 11am-4pm, free

Dolores Park

Dolores and 18th St., SF

www.thesisters.org

Salacious Underground 

After the success of the alternative live sex show Cum and Glitter, it’s clear that the Bay is ready for some onstage hijinx past the standard offerings at the Penthouse Club, or even our foxy babes over at the Lusty Lady. Enter Salacious Underground, a brand-new neo-burlesque event. What does neo-burlesque entail, you ask? Dial up the darkness and the daring on a standard Burly Q tassel-twirl — for more specifics, you’ll just have to head to Brick and Mortar on Sunday.

Sun/8 7 p.m., $7-$15

Brick and Mortar Music Hall 

1710 Mission, SF

Facebook: Salacious Underground

“Bawdy Storytelling: Geeksexual”

Everyone’s trying to cash in on the tech dollar these days, including the sexy storytelling shows. Or maybe Bawdy’s not taking that big of a leap from its typically scheduled programming — after all, as one Bawdy bard said: “I really think there’s a lot of overlap between geeks and perverts. Most of the geeks I know are pretty pervy and most of the pervs are pretty geeky.” At any rate, tonight’s stories will revolve around the art-science of dildonics and an engineer’s view of sex. 

Wed/11 7pm-10:30pm, $12

Verdi Club

2424 Mariposa, SF

www.bawdystorytelling.com

The sex worker struggle

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3
The sex worker struggle

yael@sfbg.com

Google has come under fire in the past year for everything from privacy policies to censorship. But in December, some Bay Area residents were protesting the tech giant for a very different reason. The group that marched in front of the company’s San Francisco office was angry over the company’s donation to organizations fighting human trafficking.

The flyers declared, “Google: Please fund non-judgmental services for sex workers, NOT the morality crusaders that dehumanize us!”

Google had donated a whopping $11.5 million to organizations that “fight slavery” last December, including the anti-sex trafficking groups International Justice Mission, Polaris Project, and Not For Sale.

But the activists said that these are religious organizations that ignored the rights of consensual sex workers.

According to a press release from Sex Worker Activists, Allies, and You (SWAAY), “As frontline sex-worker support services struggle for funding to serve their communities, it is offensive to watch Google shower money upon a wealthy faith-based group like the International Justice Mission, which took in nearly $22 million in 2009 alone.”

“I appreciate what they’re trying to do, but I wish that they had done more research,” Kitty Stryker, a local performer, sex worker and activist, of Google’s choice to fund the organizations.

In a society where the term “sex worker” — coined to describe those who consensually engage in commercial sex and consider it legitimate labor — is still new to most people, this sex workers rights struggle can be an uphill battle. But it rages on, and San Francisco remains one of its most important front lines.

 

FREE SEX FOR HIRE

The heart of the struggle is, and or years has been, fighting the prohibition of prostitution, and the ultimate goal of the sex workers movement is the repeal of the laws that criminalize sex for hire. Decriminalization would be a vital safety measure for escorts, people working on the street, phone-sex operators, exotic dancers, porn actors, and other occupations that fall under the umbrella category of sex work.

Sex workers held worldwide conferences in the 1980s, meeting in Amsterdam and Brussels. Sex work was legalized and decriminalized in several countries around the world, including New Zealand, the Netherlands and Germany. The Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) became one of the most important organizations fighting for the cause, with chapters around the world.

Here in San Francisco, the city remains a hub for sex-workers rights advocates, who raise awareness about issues ranging from STD prevention to consent in BDSM contexts. The Saint James Infirmary supports and treats sex workers when they need medical assistance, and the Center for Sex and Culture is a resource and community center that embraces all San Franciscan’s with their minds in the gutter, sex industry workers included.

San Francisco’s sex workers rights history includes two unions. Workers at the North Beach strip club the Lusty Lady formed the Exotic Dancers Union in 1997. The union became part of the Service Employees International Union, and the Lusty Lady remains the only collectively run, sex-worker-owned strip club in the United States.

Maxine Doogan founded the Erotic Service Providers Union (ESPU) in 2004 as an umbrella organization for sex workers in various industries. The ESPU has been active in opposing regulations of the massage industry and sponsoring Proposition K, a 2008 ballot measure that would have decriminalized sex work in San Francisco.

I spoke to a handful of Bay Area sex-workers rights activists to get a sense of the major issues and priorities for the next year.

NO VISAS

Activists are currently planning for the July, 2012 International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C.

Many international sex workers rights advocates have been denied visas to get to the conference. The U.S. typically bars convicted felons — but there’s a special exception for people guilty of misdemeanor prostitution charges.

“SWOP has an idea of getting in touch with some of the people denied entrance and asking them what they were going to present on and to try and present their papers in their place, to make sure these organizers voices are heard,” said SWOP-Bay Area spokesperson Shannon Williams.

But that’s not where the government’s weird exclusion of sex workers from its efforts to fight AIDS ends.

The Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) fund allocates $48 billion to organizations around the world engaged in AIDS treatment and prevention. But thanks to the religious right, the law, approved in 2003, includes a stipulation that all recipient groups must make a pledge decrying prostitution. It’s known as the “anti-prostitution loyalty oath.”

A court ruling July 6, 2011 declared the oath a violation of the free-speech rights of organizations in the United States, but the U.S. still blocks PEPFAR funding for international organizations based on the “loyalty oath.”

“Sex worker activists are going to converge in D.C. for the AIDS conference and talk about the loyalty oath. The US is exporting its ideology through this funding requirement” said Carol Leigh, a longtime activist who curates the annual San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Art Festival.

 

EMPHASIZING CONSENT

Sex workers rights activists continue to be engaged in their complex, decades-long struggle with anti-sex trafficking organizations.

People who want safer working conditions say that decriminalization would make it easier for police to distinguish between coerced and consensual prostitution and encourage those with knowledge of crimes perpetuated against sex workers to come forward without risking prosecution for their own illegal work.

But many anti-trafficking advocates dismiss the distinction between forced and consensual prostitution in their efforts. According to a document called “Ten reasons for not legalizing prostitution,” on the website of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, “There is no doubt that a small number of women say they choose to be in prostitution, especially in public contexts orchestrated by the sex industry… In this situation, it is harm to the person, not the consent of the person that is the governing standard (emphasis theirs).”

It’s this refusal to acknowledge the importance of consent that really pisses off advocates —and has a powerful effect on the policy that governs them.

The federal definition of sex trafficking includes consensual prostitution, and defines coerced prostitution as “severe sex trafficking.” “Law enforcement agencies can use anti-trafficking funds to arrest sex workers in prostitution, on the grounds that the feds define all prostitution as trafficking, even though the government distinguishes between trafficking and severe trafficking,” said one sex workers rights activist.

According to Leigh, anti-trafficking organizations are not all bad; she named the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women as an organization that “has been allied with sex workers rights movement and takes rights-based approach.”

But organizations that conflate consensual and coerced commercial sex are often big-time recipients of public and private funding.

Doogan is wary of any attempt to further regulate or criminalize sex work. She says that often, laws meant to deter prostitution trap people who may want to change occupations.  “Women have to continue working in the industry because no one else will take them for work when they have those convictions on their record,” said Doogan.

That may be the case with Lola, an occasional Erotic Service Providers Union volunteer who was arrested on prostitution-related charges outside California earlier this year. She moved to the Bay Area and is looking for a job, but after a promising interview last week, she’s nervous that a background check will reveal her arrest.

“I’m waiting to hear whether that’s going to be an issue or not. They could tell my landlord, and then I could lose my house too…all I’m trying to do is get a job,” Lola told the Guardian.

 

THE WORK GOES ON

For most sex-workers rights activists, the long-term goal remains decriminalization. For now education, creative projects, and protest in service of that goal continue.

Members of SWOP-Bay Area have a program called Whorespeak that does outreach at colleges, and “we’ve also been speaking in classes for therapists about how to work with current and former sex workers and not pathologize them,” said Williams.

According to Stryker, one of the most exciting projects happening now is Karma Pervs. The website, run by local queer porn star Jiz Lee, sells unique sex-positive porn and donates the proceeds to organizations like the Saint James Infirmary.

Then, of course, there’s the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, when sex workers and allies gather to commemorate sex workers who have been assaulted and killed.

Sex workers often can’t go to police to report crimes for fear of being locked up themselves, society retains a huge stigma surrounding sex work, and there is an insidious cultural myth that “you can’t rape a prostitute.” These all add up to put sex workers at high risk for assault and murder; serial killers, such as the Green River Killer in Seattle and a murdered in Long Island-area this past summer, are disproportionately likely to target prostitutes.

That’s why, for Williams, “Our long-term goal is to decriminalize prostitution. But the real goal is to end violence against sex workers.”

Hot sexy events: February 1-7

Andrew Lam
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(Insert “saddle friction” joke here.) At the risk of sounding like an episode of Portlandia, we are stoked for the Bike Smut Film Festival, which rides in for its second SF showing in two weeks – the first took place at Bayview’s Cyclecide Swearhouse last weekend – on Fri/3. 

Bike smut: people having sex on bikes, sex with bikes, sex with bikes watching – surely there will be bike couplings in there somewhere (a handlebar penetrating a spoke, well greased). This incarnation of the fresh-from-touring-Europe show has an Oregon Trail theme. Yes, we know you loved that game in elementary school. You know who else did? Everyone.

Anyways, the whole shebang rolls into the art collective OffCenter on Divisadero Street this Friday, led by one-time Lusty Lady dancer and full-time bike slut Poppy Cox and that saint (as ordained by the Church of Bicycle Genius) Reverend Phil. It sounds like it’s gonna be a good time. 

Bike Smut Film Festival

Fri/3 7-10 p.m., $7

TheOffCenter

848 Divisadero, SF

www.bikesmut.com


“From the Collection of Larry Townsend” ongoing art exhibit

I was recently at the premiere of Priscilla Bertucci’s [SSEX BBOX] global sexuality documentary at the Center for Sex and Culture, but I kept looking at the walls. Not because the film wasn’t rad (it was!), but because of all the amazing comic-style drawings of Roman orgies, space orgies, and orgy-orgies currently occupying the sex-positive community center’s walls. I have Larry Townsend to thank for this, and you can too if you head down to the comfy library space of the Center for Sex and Culture, which is adding Townsend’s treasures for a spell to its perma-exhibits of antique vibrators and shelves of queer and sex-positive literature.

Through March 30

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org


Hard French Winter Ball

Few nights of our lives can match the high-pitched hormonal rush that was high school prom. Outfit agony, whose-your-date torture, the shoes, the corsage – foreplay from hell, really. How could you have known that years later you’d be trying to recreate that same special freak-out with a slutty queer soul party on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk? El Rio’s favorite afternoon dance party takes to the road for the second year in a row this weekend, with Juanita More and the House of Salad drag beauties in tow (check the candidates for the ball’s king and queen, adorable). Will the town of Santa Cruz be the same after tulle-and-tux-encased queers occupy the beachfront? Reserve your hotel room now and pack protection because: no.

Sat/4 7 p.m., $20-$25

Cocoanut Grove

400 Beach, Santa Cruz

hardfrenchwinterball.eventbrite.com


“Bros Before Hos: Masculinity and Its Discontents” film festival

C’mon men, look at yourselves. No really – though masculinity studies is often the subject of yucks and early 1990s primal scream mock-ups, men really don’t get the magnifying glass treatment when it comes to their sexuality. Not so at this film series orchestrated by YBCA – from the story of truck-lifting strong man Stanley “Stanless Steel” Pleskun to a collection of ’20s-’70s stag films, the meat of menfolk (c’mon, not just that part) will be offered up as prime conversation-starters. Today, a look at boundary-pushing filmmaker Bob Mizer of the Athletic Model Guild.

Festival runs through Feb. 26, $8/screening

Sat/4, 7:30 p.m.: The Golden Age of the American Male: Films From Bob Mizer’s Legendary Athletic Model Guild 

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Good Vibes’ “Ask Our Docs: Intro to Anal Play”

It’s okay not to know about anal sex, Good Vibrations says. So okay, in fact, that the sex toy company is offering this completely free primer on how to get primed, taught by Charles Glickman, that man-about-sex-education-classes-in-town.

Tue/7 7-8 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

3219 Lakeshore, Oakl.

(510) 788-2389

www.goodvibes.com

 

San Francisco Smut Map

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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San Francisco Smut Map

culture@sfbg.com

SEX ISSUE 2011 In 1969, San Francisco became the first city in the country to permit the exhibition and sale of hardcore pornography. Although “permit” isn’t exactly right. The city’s vice squad (with the help of Supervisor Dianne Feinstein) fought it every step of the way. But by the time a rag-tag band of hippies with cameras began harnessing the Free Speech movement to challenge obscenity laws, San Francisco had already become, in the words of the New York Times, “a sort of Smut Capital of the United States.”

Earlier this year, director Ben Leon and I produced Smut Capital of America, a documentary short about San Francisco’s flesh-filled reign as the center of U.S. hardcore. (The skin flick industry didn’t move down to San Fernando Valley until the 1980s, when VHS took over and Los Angeles stopped arresting filmmakers.) The film industry itself may have been shaved and plucked, but San Francisco never lost its filthy patina, thank god.

Here are a few of the filthy great places, classic and new, that any self-respecting San Francisco pervert and/or fan might want to map.

1. The Condor Club

560 Broadway

The first topless dance took place in 1964 at the Condor when Carol Doda took to the stage in designer Rudi Gernreich’s revolutionary “monokini.” The bathing suit never really caught on, but topless dancing became an export that would become synonymous with San Francisco.

2. The Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre

895 O’Farrell

The good ol’ boys from Antioch made a fortune with movies like Behind the Green Door, but when obscenity busts began taking their toll, they moved to live shows. The place still give a great lap dance, but the days when you could eat a girl out for a dollar are long gone.

3. The Strand

1127 Market

I once heard it referred to as a stop on the underground gay railroad — and for good reason. While this theater showed big Hollywood movies and noir retrospectives, the balcony was the cruisiest, bleachiest-smelling place in town.

4. The Magazine

920 Larkin

This still-operational vintage magazine shop has never shied away from porn. And since few museums find it palatable to save smut, it’s a living archive of the sexual revolution, balls, and all.

5. The Screening Room

220 Jones

In 1970, the Screening Room became the first theater in America to show hardcore pornography, with a law-skirting documentary about the free-loving Danes called Pornography in Denmark. Director Alex deRenzy set off a cinematic revolution, and earned a profile in Time magazine. Perhaps fittingly, it’s now the Power Exchange sex club.

6. The Roxie and the New Follies

3117 16th Street and 2961 16th Street

Long before it was an indie movie rep house, the Roxie showed soft-and hardcore 16mm loops shot by the Mitchell Brothers, then just out of college. The New Follies, just down the street on then smut-filled 16th Street (it’s now the Victoria), pioneered bottomless dancing, and later, live sex shows.

7. The Sutter Theatre

369 Sutter

Arlene Elster and Lowell Pickett plotted the International Erotic Film Festival at their theater off Union Square in 1970, when the area was still known as the downtown Tenderloin. The films themselves screened at the prestigious Presidio Theater in the Marina with a red carpet covered by KPIX. Even smut-opponent Dianne Feinstin showed up to rant against the duo’s “very depraved wares.”

8. Le Salon

1118 Polk Street.

“There out to be a plaque on the building,” says Bay Area Reporter porn critic John Karr, who went to this bookstore to cruise and flip through dirty magazines. Store owner Roland Boudreaux eventually opened a non-smut operation next door with a connecting doorway so that customers could leave and enter without attracting stares from high-society queens.

9. The Lusty Lady

1033 Kearny

The original Lusty Lady showed 16mm films, but by the early ’80s this North Beach smut center had live dancers as well. In 1997, the dancers organized an Exotic Dancers Union to make it the first unionized sex club business in the United States. In 2003, they bought the business, making it a worker-owned cooperative.

10. The Gordon Getty Mansion

2050 Jackson

During the ’80s and ’90s, this Pacific Heights mansion was the home of smut merchant and Falcon Studios honcho Chuck Holmes, whose name now graces the LGBT community center on Market Street. In the afternoons, he shot gay porn in the basement. In the evenings, he hosted spectacular galas to raise money for visiting politicians.

11. The Armory

1800 Mission Street

Does anyone not realize that this former munitions warehouse now houses an arsenal of dildo-equipped robots and that the National Guard training hall is used to film “Wired Pussy” episodes? Thanks, Kink.com for making sure San Francisco is still known as the Smut Capital of America.

Clean secrets revealed: the Lusty Ladies

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Clean secrets revealed: the Lusty Ladies

Sex workers do all kinds of naughty (and very nice) things during work hours, but how these super-sexed individuals spend their down time seems like an alluring mystery. It’s fun to assume the sassy stripper wears high heels while vacuuming and doesn’t own sweatpants, but these are real people — and though they deal in dirty, it’s time for the Lusty Ladies to reveal their ‘clean’ secrets. 

The Lusty Lady is a unionized peep show establishment featuring a play pen packed with foxy bodies and a show that all sorts of loins love to watch from behind glass. The Lusties make it hard to think about anything other than sex, but for today, let’s leave the dancing, self-stroking, and teasing for the stage.

But these are well-rounded, independent women, replete with a full dancecard of squeaky-clean hobbies and pastimes. You want sexy? Try fresh brewed tea, or a cathartic yoga session. Rawr!

 

Bottoms’ up in the kitchen

sandy

Sandy Bottoms

Sandy Bottoms has been working at the Lusty for a year and a half and loves being surrounded by the cast of intelligent babes who prove that the sex industry can indeed provide legitimate work. She started off as the “surfer-California beach girl” but eventually found herself playing a younger role, complete with braces. 

SFBG: What’s your clean secret?

Sandy Bottoms: When I’m not dancing naked on stage I can usually be found in my apron baking. I’m so obsessed with cupcakes I’ve even wrangled a sweetie into making me a cupcake dress. 

 

SFBG: When do you most like to do it? 

SB: I like to make treats for my fellow Lusties, family, and friends whenever I can, really. Decadent boob-shaped cakes have made their way to birthday events, baby blue meringue cookies to transition parties, and indulgent vegan gluten-free cupcakes to Lusty PRIDE bake sales. 

 

SFBG: Where do like it? 

SB: My kitchen. 

 

SFBG: Why does it make you feel good? 

SB: I suppose in part baking fulfills a 1950s housewife fantasy that doesn’t integrate with or show through other parts of my character. I like to be productive when I’m relaxing and I never let the green grass grow under my high heels. 

 

Cinnamon’s late night creations

cinnamon

Cinnamon

It’s been nearly five years since Cinnamon debuted at the Lusty and she just completed her year-long term as Lead Madam in February. She likes stripping because it’s fun, different, and unionized — and her “pretty awesome juicy booty” demands attention. 

SFBG: What is your clean secret? 

C: I love to paint. I love to paint, sculpt, costume design (as seen above), sew, and get down and dirty with a good art project. Not that exciting, but it’s what I love. I even went to an art high school in Oakland.

 

SFBG: When do you most like to do it? 

C: In the morning, afternoon, evening. Sometimes even late at night, I wake up at 2 a.m. and want to paint or draw. 

 

SFBG: Why does it make you feel good?

C: Painting helps me sort my thoughts and I don’t feel so overwhelmed. I feel relaxed when I paint. I love getting really into a project and getting messy and covered in paint and other materials. I also don’t just stop with paint when I’m really into a project. I usually use anything I can get my hands on, from sand to coffee filters. 

 

SFBG: When do you feel most proud about it?

C: When I finally finish a project! Which is hardly ever. I also feel pretty happy when I start a really good new project with something I’ve never tried before. But more than anything I love it when someone comes over to visit and says “That picture is awesome, where’d you get it?”

 

Bijou shows off her flexibility

bijou

Bijou. Photo by craspadseries.com

A love of dancing and an appreciation of the Lusty community has kept Bijou on the stage for three years. She doesn’t pre-plan a routine per se, but she’s known to have cat moves, or at least a very feline-like presence. 

SFBG: What is your clean secret? 

B: I absolutely love and do A LOT of yoga.

 

SFBG: Why does it make you feel good? 

B: I can literally enter another space while I’m practicing, and my body always feels immediately energized after a class or home practice.

 

SFBG: Where did you learn such a thing? 

B: Studios all over the country and I informally trained every single day during a year in Bangkok, Thailand.

 

SFBG: When did you feel most proud of it? 

B: When I just let go and cry during my practice. It sounds funny but that usually means I’ve really, truly connected with my body.

 

Harlow Valentine brews it hot and wet

Harlow

Harlow Valentine

As a co-owner of the Lusty, Harlow Valentine loves exploring hot scenarios with lots of strangers and sharing the attention with intelligent and sexy women. She especially likes to show her “booty” to curious peepers. 

SFBG: What is your clean secret?

HV: I love to drink tea.

 

SFBG: Where do like it? 

HV: In the kitchen, at a cafe, in bed.

 

SFBG: Why does it make you feel good?

HV: It’s soothing, it’s warm, it’s delicious and sometimes has a fantastic color!

 

SFBG: When did you feel most proud of it?

HV: When I hear pleasing sighs escape from the lips of someone who’s just sipped my freshly brewed tea…though perhaps that’s because, in general, I enjoy hearing people sigh from pleasure!

Music Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

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

WEDNESDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Andrew Jackson Jihad, Hard Girls, Royal Monsters Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Blackstone Heist, Deathjazz, Lloyd’s Garage Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

*Blind Guardian, Holy Grail, Seven Kingdoms Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $26.

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

Greenhornes, Hacienda Independent. 8pm, $15.

David Liebe Hart, Hot Panda, Chris Thayer, Donny Divinian Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Reckless Kelly Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Belanova Fillmore. 8pm, $39.50.

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm.

Farmer Dave Scher, Chapin Sisters, Neema Café Du Nord. 9pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

Open Mic Night 330 Ritch. 9pm, $7.

Red Wine Social Triple Crown. 5:30-9:30pm, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

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

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

THURSDAY 9

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Heather Combs, Edie Carey, Aiden Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Ex-Boyfriends, Complaints, Bruises Eagle Tavern. 9pm.

Alan Iglesias Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16. Stevie Ray Vaughn tribute.

Little Teeth, Blackbird Raum, Future Twin Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Mike Pinto Band, Jahlectrik, She Beards Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Millionyoung, Teen Daze, Great Mundane Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Needtobreathe, Daylights Fillmore. 8pm, $20.

Randy Rogers Band, Whiskey Dawn Independent. 8pm, $15.

Lenny Williams Rrazz Room. 8pm, $35-45.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Graham Connah Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8pm, free.

SF Jazz Hotplate Series Amnesia. 9pm.

SF State Afro Cuban Jazz Ensemble Coda. 10pm, $10.

Swing with Stan Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Alhambra Valley Band Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

Mission 3 Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Base Vessel. 9:30pm, $10. Featuring Hot Natured (Jamie Jones and Lee Foss).

CakeMIX SF Wish, 1539 Folsom, SF; www.wishsf.com. 10pm, free. DJ Carey Kopp spinning funk, soul, and hip hop.

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

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

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

Electric Feel Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $2. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning indie music videos.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With DJs spinning R&B, Hip hop, classics, and soul.

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

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

Kissing Booth Make-Out Room. 9pm, free. DJs Jory, Commodore 69, and more spinning indie dance, disco, 80’s, and electro.

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

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

Motion Sickness Vertigo, 1160 Polk, SF; (415) 674-1278. 10pm, free. Genre-bending dance party with DJs Sneaky P, Public Frenemy, and D_Ro Cyclist.

Nacht Musik Knockout. 10:30pm, $4. Dark, minimal electronic with DJs Omar, Josh, and Justin.

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

Ümloud DNA Lounge. 7pm, $10. Play Rock Band onstage to raise money for Child’s Play Charity.

FRIDAY 10

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

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

Dave Rude Band, Angels of Vice, Dead Neck Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Dead Souls Knockout. 5pm.

Hanni El Khatib, Th Mrcy Hot Sprngs, Hairspray Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Fleeting Trance, Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $7.

Kottonmouth Kings, (hed)p.e. Slim’s. 8pm, $25.

“Lusty Lady Kinky Kiss-Mass” DNA Lounge. 9pm, $12-15. Burlesque show plus Destroyer, Minks, Trixie Carr, and Horror X.

Magic Bullets, Sleeptalks Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Soulive feat. Karl Denson, DJ Harry Duncan Independent. 9pm, $22.

Kim Wilson Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $24.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bryan Girard Trio Cliff House, 1090 Point Lobos, SF; (415) 386-3330. 7pm, free.

Greenhorse Amnesia. 7pm.

Greg Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bossa 5-0 Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8pm, free.

Right On Time Dolores Park Café, 501 Dolores, SF; www.doloresparkcafe.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Ozomatli Fillmore. 9pm, $26.50.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

Fo’ Sho! Fridays Madrone Art Bar. 10pm, $5. DJs Kung Fu Chris and Makossa spin rare grooves, soul, funk, and hip-hop classics.

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

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

Heartical Roots Bollywood Café. 9pm, $5. Recession friendly reggae.

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

Indy Slash Amnesia. 10pm. With DJ Danny White.

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

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

Treat ‘Em Right Elbo Room. 10pm. Groove Merchant’s 20th anniversary celebration with Groove Merchant DJs and guests.

Two Kinds of Stupid Holiday Party Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10. Live sets with K. Flay and TigerCat, plus DJs Brother Grimm and BAS.

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

SATURDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Dandy Warhols, Blue Giant Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $27.

Family Scott, K-9, Psychology of Genocide Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

*Forbidden, Evile, Gama Bomb, Bonded By Blood, Fog of War DNA Lounge. 2pm, $20.

Donald Glover, Childish Gambino Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Golda + Guns, Sugarspun, Skyflakes, Apple Orchard, Little Bits Rock-It Room. 9pm, $6. San Bruno fire victims benefit.

Derick Hughes Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Chaka Khan, Chrisette Michele Warfield. 8pm, $45-82.

Phenomenauts, Neutralboy, Murderland Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

San Cha, DJ Moxy 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm, free.

Shannon and the Clams, Night Beats, Outlaw Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Soulive feat. Karl Denson, DJ Harry Duncan Independent. 9pm, $22.

Voodoo Glow Skulls, Jokes For Feelings, Rockfight Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bill Carey Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8pm, free.

Emergency String X-Tet with Rent Romus Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 8pm, $10.

Emily Anne’s Delights Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Ozomatli Fillmore. 3 and 9pm, $10-26.50.

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

DANCE CLUBS

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

Bootie: Holiday Party DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Xmas mash-ups with Adrian and Mysterious D.

Club Gossip Cat Club. 9pm, $5-8. Tribute to Nine Inch Nails.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $7. Queer dance party with DJ Nuxx and guests.

Frolic Stud. 9pm, $3-7. DJs Dragn’Fly, NeonBunny, and Ikkuma spin at this celebration of anthropomorphic costume and dance. Animal outfits encouraged.

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

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

Same Sex Salsa and Swing Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; (415) 305-8242. 7pm, free.

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

Spotlight Siberia, 314 11th St, SF; (415) 552-2100. 10pm. With DJs Slowpoke, Double Impact, and Moe1.

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Electro cumbia with Natalie Storm, Max Glazer, Sabo, Disco Shawn, and Oro11.

SUNDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“Anais Mitchell Presents: Music of Hadestown” Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $21. With Thao Nguyen, Sean Hayes, John Elliott and the Hadestown Orchestra, and Michael Chorney.

Jon Anderson Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $37-55.

Arsis, Powerglove, Conducting from the Grave, Absence Thee Parkside. 8pm, $12-15.

“Battle of the Bands” DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With Astronomy Lounge, Madman’s Lullaby, Smash Atoms, and more.

Black Crowes Fillmore. 8pm, $60.

Karina Denike, Upsets Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8pm, free.

Gene Taylor Blues Band Slim’s. 8pm, $21.

Stornoway, Head and the Heart Independent. 8pm, $14.

Toiling Midgets, White Pee, Bloodfucker Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Joe Louis Walker Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Valeriana Quevedo, Larry Vuckovich, Jeff Chambers Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; (415) 826-6200. 4:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Amy Obenski, Erica Sunshine Lee, Jess Brewster Yoshi’s San Francisco (in the lounge). 8pm, $7.

Whiskey Richards, Leo Rondeau Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, dubstep, roots, and dancehall with DJ Sep, J Boogie, and guest Ross Hogg.

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

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

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

Pachanga! Coda. 5pm, $10. Salsa dance party with Orquesta La Moderna Tradición.

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

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

MONDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

C-Money and Players Inc. Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Ed Jones Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8pm, free.

Tame Impala, Stardeath and White Dwarfs Independent. 8pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TUESDAY 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Badly Drawn Boy Café Du Nord. 8pm, $25.

Black Crowes Fillmore. 8pm, $60.

CCR Headcleaner, Bleak Ethnique, Tongue and Teeth Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $5.

Dominique Leone, Ash Reiter, Poor Sweet Creatures Amnesia. 9pm.

Low, Charlie Parr Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $17.

Man Among Wolves, Damaura, Red Light Mind Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Bob Margolin Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

DANCE CLUBS

Bombshell Betty’s Burleque Bailout Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. With Fromagique and the Burlesqueteers.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

On the Cheap Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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On the Cheap listings are compiled by Caitlin Donohue. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 8

k11 Craft Sale 2260 Adeline, Berk.; www.knitoneone.blogspot.com 10am-4pm, free. Awash in holiday shopping events? Us too. Let’s retire to this year-round knit and craft sale. This month gathers 12 creative souls who’d like to stuff your stockings – from cheery note cards, vintage-looking totes, bright dish towels, and more.

“This is Art! Live!” live cable access broadcast Steven Wolf Fine Arts, 2747A 19th St., SF; www.stevenwolffinearts.com. 5:30pm, free. A special viewing party for BAVC show “This is Art! Live!” will give participants a chance to get up all in the quirky program, which consists of home-made commercials, dramatic interludes, and thought-provoking queries like “why are women artists hot?” Weigh in, then stick around for a runway fashion show and libations.

THURSDAY 9

Golden Gate Park holiday tree lighting McLaren Lodge, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.sfrecpark.org. 5pm, free. Bundle up and head to the picturesque McLaren Lodge, the (Golden) gate-keeping chalet off of Stanyan, for the 81st annual lighting of the massive pine in front. The kids will be all rosy-cheeked and distracted by train rides, caroling, and a visit from the portly Claus himself.

FRIDAY 10

Lights on Market Street celebration Procession starts at 1119 Market; reception at The Luggage Store, 1007 Market, SF; www.sfartscommission.org. 5-7pm, free. The three light installations funded by Mid-Market’s recent $250,000 NEA grant ignite one by one tonight in a procession headed by members of Sixth Street’s Bayanihan Community Center, and their traditional Filipino parol lanterns. Come bedecked in your own culture’s style of illuminations and enjoy a reception after at community gallery The Luggage Store.

SATURDAY 11

Bazaar Bizarre Fort Mason Center, SF; www.bazaarbizarre.org. Noon-5pm (Also Sun/12 noon-6pm), free. The Boston-spawned crafteria makes its way across the country to bring Bay Area-ites its hearty dose of DIY communitarianism. Come for 150 booths worth of the city’s best hand-crafties and sate your browsing-induced hunger with a crème brûlée or taco from Off the Grid’s fabulous ambulatory food carts.

Creative Arts Craft & Book Fair Creative Arts Charter School, 1601 Turk, SF; (415) 749-3509, www.creativeartscharter.org. 10am-4pm, free. Throw some ducats towards your local student-centered K-8 school at their annual bazaar, home to handmade crafts and a little sustenance for your holiday season – hot soup, cider, and book readings by the Winter Fairy on the hour.

Glamazonia: The Uncanny Super Tranny Mission Comics and Art, 3520 20th St., SF; (415) 695-1545, www.missioncomicsandart.com. 7-10pm, free. Justin Hall reads from the solo comic book debut of his blonde beehived, body rockin’ super tranny. She’s got Superman in a trance! Bruce Lee’s down on his knees! He’s joined by a swath of other pulp fiction luminaries and oh yes, they’ll have copies for signing.

Hawaiian Holiday Craft and Bake Sale St. Patrick’s Parish Center, 409 Magnolia, Larkspur; 10am-4pm, free. Perhaps you are not destined for a beach-side lounge chair and awkward lei tan lines this winter. Undoubtedly, sweets, you’re not the only one. Also, you can get your plate lunch and island treats all the same at this 11th annual fundraiser for Hula On Productions — the snacks and crafts have been cooked up by members of the Halau Hula Na Pua O Ka La’akea, Hula On’s dance contingent.

Spark! Circus benefit show Vagabond Ballroom, 830 Isabella, Oakl.; (415) 816-4620, www.sparkcircus.org. 8pm-midnight, $10-20 sliding scale. It takes a village to blow a kid’s mind – spend an evening with this one to help fund Spark!’s mission to send 15 members of their fire spinnin’, jugglin’, rappin’, and joke crackin’ troupe to perform for kids in refugee camps, migrant schools, hospitals, and orphanages along the Thai-Burmese border.

MONDAY 13

Lemony Snicket Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk.; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. 7pm, free. The dreadful, beleaguered children’s book hero sends his “stand-in,” author Daniel Handler to speak for him as part of Berkeley Rep’s always-free “Page to Stage” series.

The Monthly Rumpus The Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. 7-9:30pm, $10. The month’s theme, “Ladies Night,” draws some XX luminaries to the literary reading series stage, including Lusty Lady union organizer Antonia Crane, Michelle Tea, and indie folksters The Yellow Dress.

Our Weekly Picks: December 8-14, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 8

MUSIC

Holy Grail

Though you practically need a PhD in metal to keep track of Holy Grail’s ever-shifting lineup, one thing is obvious to anyone — even a layperson — when he or she first hears the band: singer James Paul Luna has one of the best young voices in rock ‘n’ roll, period. Ascending to falsetto heights with polished ease, the siren-lunged Pasadena, Calif., native fronts a band dedicated to the exuberant excess of early eighties speed metal, and his Halfordesque attack on the mic is complimented by the frenetic shredding and double-bass gallop of the band that backs him up. Touring in support of long-awaited debut LP Crisis in Utopia, Holy Grail is not to be missed. (Ben Richardson)

With Blind Guardian and Seven Kingdoms

8 p.m., $32

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

1-800-745-3000

www.theregencyballroom.com

PERFORMANCE

 

David Liebe Hart

Along with James Quall and Richard Dunn (R.I.P.), David Liebe Hart is the cream of the crop of lovingly bizarre actors populating Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! The show takes pride in exposing the world to forgotten Hollywood street performers, bit actors, outsider musicians, and left-field comedians, all of which can be used to sum up Liebe Hart’s career. Armed with his trusty puppet and musical tales of being abducted by Corrinian aliens, he’ll be headlining Club Chuckles’ Seventh Anniversary Show lineup. Be sure to greet him with a friendly “Salame!” (Landon Moblad)

With Hot Panda, Chris Thayer, and Donny Divanian

9 p.m., $7

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

 

FILM

“Andy Warhol: Face and The Velvet Underground in Boston Cinematheque Benefit”

An early look at recent restorations of two of Andy Warhol’s most obscure movies (both long out of circulation) is the hidden jewel of San Francisco Cinematheque’s fall season. Face (1965) is an hour-long expression of Edie Sedgwick’s superstar photogenie. The Velvet Underground in Boston (1967) collects rare footage of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable house-band in its prime. Taken together, the films should present an unusual view of Factory life. The screening benefits Cinematheque’s upcoming programming, so you’ll leave knowing you’ve done your part for underground movies. (Max Goldberg)

8 p.m., $15

Victoria Theatre

2961 16th St., SF

(415) 863-7576

www.sfcinematheque.org

 

PERFORMANCE

Legacy, A One Ho Show

Presented by the AIRspace residency program, Trashina Cann (real name: Randen Kane) stars in Legacy, A One Ho Show, a queer-friendly, autobiographical dance theater piece exploring the misfortunes and vices passed down through Kane’s family and their effects on her life today. Journeying through three generations of women and their struggles with abandonment, sexual abuse, unwanted motherhood, prostitution, and incarceration, Kane comes to understand that her troubling past can also save her. Using burlesque, song, dance, and video, Kane manifests her incredible life story and her will to overcome, all the while staying extraordinarily entertaining. (Emmaly Wiederholt)

Wed/8–Thurs/9, 8 p.m., $10–$20

Garage

975 Howard, SF

(415) 518-1517

www.975howard.com

 

THURSDAY 9

PERFORMANCE

Adam Carolla

What hasn’t funny guy Adam Carolla done in his show business career? He got his start in radio (Loveline), branched out into television (The Man Show), written and starred in a feature film (2007’s The Hammer), and expanded onto the Internet with his podcast talk show. Carolla’s latest foray finds him as the author of a new book, In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks … And Other Complaints From An Angry Middle-Aged White Guy, which he’ll be promoting and signing during his “Christmas Carolla” tour of the West Coast, bringing his caustic yet sidesplitting and hilarious, stand-up to the raw and uncensored — as it should be — live stage. (Sean McCourt)

Thurs/9, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.;

Fri/10–Sat/11, 8 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., $32.50–$35.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

 

FRIDAY 10

VISUAL ART

 

“Boom”

Art is made in all manners of cracks and crevices and four-bedroom apartments. How are we to know that what we have the pleasure of viewing gallery-side is the best of the best, the most succulent bit of Dungeness in San Francisco’s cioppino? Well, we don’t, and now I’m hungry. But events like “Boom” tend to help matters. The event is an entry fee-free juried art show, which means that a) artists don’t gotta have sold a $700,000 piece to kick it (congrats to Chor Boogie, by the way); and b) Southern Exposure has supplied an expert mind to deem said art worthy of your collection or not. (Caitlin Donohue)

Through Dec. 18

Opening reception tonight, 6–9 p.m., free

Southern Exposure

3030 20th St., SF

(415) 863-2141

www.soex.org

 

EVENT

“The Lusty Lady’s Kinky Kiss-Mass Party”

Ohhhhh! Uhhhhuh! Fuhkuhhhhhhh … there, no, therrrreee! Ahhhhhhh! Yesssssss! Can’t get enough? Don’t worry, babe, there’ll be plenty to get you off at the Lusty Lady’s ho-ho-holiday fundraiser. Love peppermint? Enter the Candy Cane Suck-Off Contest! Love cheeky 1960s garage rock and ’70s hard glam? See the Minks and Destroyer, covering two great bands named after two great things: the Kinks and Kiss, respectively. Love hot naked women who are unionized, lionized, organized, and revolutionized? Then raise your glass of cheap booze while you help raise funds to keep the shades raised, one hot dollar at a time. (Kat Renz)

With Trixxie Carr, Horror X, and DJ Omar

8 p.m.-3 a.m., $12–$15

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

 

SATURDAY 11

MUSIC

“The I Am Donald Tour” with Donald Glover + Childish Gambino

As the man-child Troy on NBC’s Community (and a former writer for 30 Rock), 26-year-old Donald Glover currently stands on the precipice of a breakout comedic acting career. So what’s he doing releasing a non-novelty rap album (under the name Childish Gambino)? Although his current celebrity makes it initially hard to take his music seriously, once you move past the indie-kid stroking (“H.O.V.A. with glasses/Weezy but nerdy”) and TV-star titillation (“NBC is not the only thing I’m coming on tonight”), Glover’s casual willingness to be introspective and examine uncomfortable personal struggles signals that he plans on doing more than vacationing in the genre. (Peter Galvin)

9 p.m., $15

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

 

THEATER

Siddhartha, The Bright Path

Performed entirely by kids and young adults, Siddhartha, The Bright Path chronicles Siddhartha’s epic journey to becoming the Buddha alongside the story of modern-day Chandra from San Francisco. Chandra finds herself amid a bounty of birthday presents posing questions about the real value of material goods in the face of human suffering. The two meet on the banks of the Ganges River under a bodhi tree where the Buddha helps Chandra find enlightenment relevant to her life. Fused with Indian music, art, and kathak dance, this play combines traditional Indian culture with the warmth of the holiday season. (Wiederholt)

Through Jan. 9

Previews Sat/11–Sun/12, 3 p.m.; Dec 16, 7:30 p.m.

Opens Dec 17, 7:30 p.m. (schedule varies), $10–$50

Marsh Youth Theater

1062 Valencia, SF

www.themarsh.org

 

MUSIC

Gama Bomb

The burgeoning retro-thrash movement has become so overcrowded that it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, but hold onto your gigantic white Reebok hi-tops — Gama Bomb is coming. The Dublin, Ireland, quintet is among the best of an uneven bunch, cranking out gleeful, inventive ditties full of machine-gun picking and nerdy, caterwauled vocals. Tales from the Grave in Space (2009) picked up where its previous effort left off, drawing on the band’s love of booze, bawdiness, and pulpy pop culture to weave an adrenalized tapestry shot through with divebombing solos and single-stroke rolls. Hearing the blitzkrieg live will be another matter entirely, and the Bomb is making its first visit to the U.S., so expect an all-out assault. (Richardson)

With Forbidden, Evile, Bonded by Blood, and Fog of War

2:30 p.m., $20

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-2532

www.dnalounge.com

 

SUNDAY 12

EVENT

Jeff Hoke

Alchemy, dreams, psychology, the stars — wrapped up in an enigmatic Myst-like museum and served to you in a picture book that aims to explain all four. Jeff Hoke is a unique mind. He’d have to be to hold his position as senior exhibits designer at Monterey Bay Aquarium, and we’re given an inside track to the inner workings of the man’s cerebellum with his new book, Museum of Lost Wonder (whose basic premise is explained above). On this day, he takes to the Exploratorium, where he plans to “merge the myths of science and nature,” according to the museum’s website. Screw on your thinking cap. (Donohue)

3–5 p.m., free with museum admission ($10–$15)

Exploratorium

3601 Lyon, SF

(415) 561-0360

www.exploratorium.edu

 

MONDAY 13

MUSIC

Tame Impala

Tame Impala describes itself as “the movement in Orion’s nebula and the slime from a snail journeying across a footpath.” Clearly, Tame Impala is a psychedelic rock band, complete with outrageous metaphor and hyperbole. But unlike a number of other noted bands in the resurging genre, its heavy sound derives more from a traditional hard groove than wild, in-studio manipulation. If at times the sound is evocative of the Flaming Lips, there’s good reason: Lips producer Dave Fridmann had his hand in Tame Impala’s debut, Innerspeaker. Adding to the vibe, this bill features Stardeath and White Dwarfs, contributors to the Lips’ 2009 Dark Side of the Moon remake and musical progeny of Wayne Coyne. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Stardeath and White Dwarfs

8 p.m., $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

TUESDAY 14

FILM

The Triplets of Belleville

With luck, January 2011 will bring the release of the much-delayed animated picture The Illusionist. Originally intended for rollout in 2007, director Sylvain Chomet’s second film should be of particular interest to Francocinephiles, based on an unproduced script written by Jacques Tati. Until then, revisit The Triplets of Belleville, a showcase of Chomet’s unique gift for caricature and Tati’s influence, free of excessive dialogue. Nominated for Best Animated Film at the 2003 Academy Awards, it lost to Finding Nemo, but it should have at least won Best Animated Dog of All Time. (Prendiville)

Dec. 14–15, 7:15 and 9:15 p.m.;

Also Dec. 15, 2 p.m., $6–$9

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

 

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

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