Mission

UP Festival will locate urban engineering ideas within the best of the SF arts scene

Andrew Lam
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Technology-driven “tactical urbanism” will be on display Sat/20 at the Urban Prototyping (UP) Festival. Presented by the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, the Intersection for the Arts, Rebar, and global design firm IDEO, the UP Festival will feature over 20 projects whose creators hope will be at the forefront of urban innovation. The various projects will be showcased on the streets and in parking lots in a three-block zone centered on the corner of 5th Street and Mission, and soundtracked by a rather stellar lineup of local theater, live music, and DJs. The festival promises to be an explosion of DIY tech meets DIY civic engagement meets SF art scene.

Each digitized urban mashup venture presented will essentially be a miniature replica of the desired development. The projects will include public urinals, reimagined urban gardens, and glowing crosswalks. In addition, one particular display that caught our eye entitled “Faces,” is a facial recognition plan that takes pictures of passing pedestrians and projects them on a nearby wall. Scary? Cool?

Hip-hop collective Felonius performs with theater group Campo Santo this weekend

Expect to see an array of some the best entertainment in the Bay, too. Hot Pocket, the Latin-funk ensemble comprised of Bayonics members will perform, along with Jazz Mafia and a host of other live music groups. Festival goers will get the privilege of a performance by Intersection for the Art’s resident theater company Campo Santo who collaborate on a piece with hip-hop collective Felonius. The GAFTA stage will host DJs from Haceteria’s Tristes Tropiques to Honey Sound System’s DJ P-Play, latter doing a set with visuals by Gabriel Dunne. Kicking off the festivities will be a live graffiti battle, for which artists like Ricardo “Apex” Richey and Jan Wayne Swayze will spray up works of art as you watch (don’t get too close unless you dig aerosol-head.)

UP Festival Expo

Sat/20, free

Mint and Hallidie Plazas

5th St. between Mission and Market, SF

sf.urbanprototyping.org

Tiny hats and Trannyshack: this year’s Masquerotica has something for everyone

Andrew Lam
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Tiny hats and Trannyshack: this year’s Masquerotica has something for everyone

What of the the sex expo? Hundreds of new pairs of fishnet stockings await this weekend’s Masquerotica at the Concourse Exhibition on Sat/13. They languish in their packages, yearning for the convention center-sized strut between rooms of Kink.com performers, contortionists, fetish wear booths, Trannyshack vamps, and Hard French DJs. For months now, we at the Guardian have been receiving tidings of the second annual Masquerotica’s impending onslaught, which, event PR folk assured us, was to be a true representative of SF sex culture. 

To fully prepare ouselves for the scantily-clad melees, we turned to event co-organizer Scott Levkoff for answers. Levkoff is the founded of Mission Control, that pansexual playground here in the city that hosts such swinger’s balls as Kinky Salon with his partner, Polly Pandemonium. He gave us an idea of what to expect, and unexpectedly extolled the virtues of tiny top hats and sexy nurse costumes.

SFBG: After Exotic Erotic went down in financial flames, why do you think it’s important to have these large scale sex events?

SL: Its one thing to explore freedom behind closed doors, to express and explore in small circles or at invite only events- but if you have ever participated with any of the larger events such as Folsom Fair and Pride, there is a feeling that you are amongst a majority and no longer a minority. 

The first time I went to events such as Folsom Fair, and even the now-defunct Exotic Erotic Ball, I marvelled at the sense of freedom and elation that I experienced. There is a weird sense of belonging that I feel at these large scale events, a sense of rightness regarding your choice to live and love the way you wish that is amplified by the sheer numbers present. In a practical sense, large scale events can model the behaviors necessary for the adoption and acceptance of progressive attitudes if done right.

SFBG: How do you think Masquerotica would be as an entry point for someone who is looking to explore their kinkyness?

SL: Masquerotica has been intentionally curated as a sort of smorgasbord of SF’s sexiest and most creative communities — think of the party like a sampler buffet of many sensual delights and treats. Guests newer and perhaps a bit timid in exploring these worlds will also find the party a great introduction. They’ll be welcomed by our trained event hosts courtesy of Mission Control, dubbed Masqueteers. They will greet guests at the front gate, present our basic house rules, such as: Be nice! Consent is sexy! No aggressive cruising — even if they are really cute! Please ask before touching! Etc.

SFBG: Can you tell me about some of the fashion that will be at the expo? 

SL: One will see a lot of Dark Garden corsets, Burning Man fashions, the ever perennial ‘tiny top hat’, animal costumes, and clothing from SF establishments such as Costume on Haight, Distractions, Piedmont Boutique, Fantasy Makers, Mr. S Leather, New York Apparel, Idol Vintage, Multi-Kulti and one of my faves-Decades of Fashion. We’re encouraging guests to put on what makes them feel sexy and playful, whether it’s Venetian carnival couture, leather, shiny latex, lingerie, corsets, uniforms, gothic Lolita, steampunk, high Victorian, Phantom of The Opera tuxedos, lace masks, see-through fabrics, bubble wrap — get creative! As always, I predict Legs Avenue costumes will make a strong showing as well. You can never have enough sexy cats, sexy nurses, and sexy witches at a party.

SFBG: I’ve gotten a lot of emails from the organization promoting Masquerotica as a sex-positive event, as compared to other massive sex expos that the city hosts. What about Masquerotica is different from XO Expo, etc.?

SL: There really is a science to creating sexy creative events where everyone feels safe and free to express themselves. Empowering guests to ‘step up their game,’ and following through with them when they don’t, is hugely important. Just saying that you support freedom and self-expression can unleash a Mardi Gras, free-for-all mentality. Foster creative community engagement, participation, and hearty dialogue with your brand. Also important: choosing good music, erotic art, and playful visuals that brings a good vibe. Embrace true diversity whenever possible and communicate your vision to your public constantly. And make sure your space smells good! Nothing says sexy like the scent of cow dung and wet asphalt! [editor’s note: sarcasm and the Internet have few happy meetings]

Masquerotica

Sat/20 8:30pm-3am, $55–$125

Concourse Exhibition Center

635 Eighth St., SF

www.masquerotica.com

 

Bat-hurt

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS After the game we went to the Pilsner Inn to drink with the other team and watch the 49ers. Who, btw, ended up winning that Sunday by twice as much as we did.

Our relatively new li’l football team, like the big ol’ San Francisco one, is developing an identity as a defensive powerhouse. I like this. It was the talk of the opposition, down the bar: how we had befuddled the bejesus out of them, to the tune of four interceptions, two returned by Stringbean for touchdowns, and a fumble recovery.

Their quarterback, who sat next to me at the bar with a gigantic oozing turfburn on her leg, revisited these frustrations smilingly, and with compliments all-around. I doubt the Bills were so gracious, bellying up to the bar with the Niners later that afternoon, but I imagine they oozed too. Football is a tough sport, even when you play it with flags.

But baseball hurts more.

How I know is the next day I was at the Mission Playground with Hedgehog playing one-on-one baseball on the basketball court, and she lined one off my arm, then another one into my stomach, and then a third off the top of my knee.

Now that she’s been cleared to swing a bat, she just won’t leave me alone. She’s making up for lost time, baseballwise. But gets bored easily with soft toss, which is a shame, because really that’s the safest way to perfect your swing in an outdoor basketball court.

So now I am blacker and bluer than ever. And I am soaking in the tub with a package of frozen edamame on my knee, listening to postseason baseball and reading Great Expectations. Re-reading. Technically, if you must know: re-re-re-re-reading.

CHEAP SPORTS

by Hedgehog

I missed Chicken Farmer’s FMOIBWFIOBPFFL (female, male, or otherwise-identified bio-women and female-identified other-bodied persons flag football league) game on Sunday because I had a pre-production meeting with Pork Chop Sal, my right hand gal (Chicken Farmer gets the left because she broke it. And because I’m left-handed so, you know…) We’re in pre-production on the next short movie.

Yes: already.

And no, you’re not working on it.

Why not? You really should be. Chicken Farmer caters, I boss people around … It’s just like any other day in the Chicken Farmer/Hedgehog household except there’s a camera rolling and Earl Butter sits on our couch more, often with the Maze, cracking wise.

Anyways, Sugoi Sushi popped up at Hill and Valencia back in July-uary, around about the same time we popped back into town. Like us, they decided to stay. Which is good because it took us a while to get there. It took us until Monday, when the sushi mood struck. And then again on Wednesday, because Bikkets and her mister were in town and the sushi mood struck them, too.

I’m no food writer but both times the sushi was fresh, the ramen was firm, the waitstaff was friendly, and they brought little treats to the table. For free! Can’t get cheaper than free. The things with prices attached aren’t overly pricey, either. It’s Chicken Farmer’s new favorite restaurant. But be warned: spicy doesn’t mean the same thing to Sugoi as it does to the rest of the world. So don’t expect much heat out of the spicy sausage.

It’s more like smoky, teeny kielbasa.

Cheap Eats continued

But delicious nonetheless. It reminded me a little of longanisa, those little Filipino sausages I so love.

It was the treats I took issue with. A mayonnaise-having dynamite roll one night, and mushrooms the other. And if there are two things that start with m that I don’t like, those are them.

But Hedgehog is right: You can’t argue with free.

As for her over-acronymization of the SFWFFL, I can argue … but won’t.

SUGOI SUSHI

Mon-Thu 5:30-10:30pm; Fri-Sat 5:30-11pm; Sun 5-9:30pm

1058 Valencia, SF

(415) 401-8442

AE,D,MC,V

Beer & wine

 

SF Stories: About the illustrator

Andrew Lam
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SF Stories: About the illustrator

For the special issue marking the 46th anniversary of the Guardian, we gathered stories about the city from some of the its best writers. To illuminate the text, we asked ace San Francisco fine artist and illustrator Lisa Congdon to paint a series of images representing contemporary San Francisco iconography. Lisa is best known for her colorful paintings and collages, and her vast catalog of work includes illustrations for Chronicle Books, Harper Collins Publishing, and Simon and Schuster, among others. She’s also known for her hand-lettering and pattern design, and keeps a daily blog of her work called “Today is Going to be Awesome.” She lives in the Mission District of San Francisco with her partner, chihuahua, and two cats. 

 

Our Weekly Picks: October 17-23

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 17

Bob Dylan

What does one need to know in order to decide whether or not to go to one of the upcoming Bay Area Bob Dylan concerts? What more can you say about a legendary singer-songwriter who has left an indelible mark on the fabric of American culture for 50 years — the man who earlier this year was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to this country via his more than 600 songs, including “The Times They Are A-Changin'” and “Blowin’ in the Wind?” All you need to know is that Dylan is in town, there are still tickets available, and you will never forgive yourself if you miss the opportunity to see this one of a kind icon. (Sean McCourt)

With Mark Knopfler

Wed/17-Thu/18, 7:30pm, $59.50–$125

Bill Graham Civic Auditorium

99 Grove, SF

www.apeconcerts.com

 

THURSDAY 18

Makers Nightlife

Do you need to have a reason to engineer cool robots and get generally crafty? If your answer is, “No, just do it!” you might like Maker Faire, a showcase of DIY creativity and cool technology. And there doesn’t seem to be a better place to see it than inside the living domes of the California Academy of Sciences. Many projects will be on display for you to ogle and nerd-out on, including pieces by Applied Kinetic Arts and a jukebox-style dancing robot. If the creativity gets you itching to work with your hands, the event will be ready with a craft table for making freak flags. Or you can just sit back and enjoy a live performance by the very cerebral, digital painter, J-Watt. Either way, it should be a fun night of quirkiness, creativity, and intellectual stimulation. (Molly Champlin)

6pm, $12

California Academy of Sciences

55 Music Concourse

(415) 379-8000

www.calacademy.org


FRIDAY 19

Jason Lytle of Grandaddy

It’s been a great year to be a Grandaddy fan. Not only did 2012 yield a handful of unexpected reunion shows for the Modesto space pop band (including an excellent Outside Lands night show at the Independent), but now frontperson Jason Lytle has just released Dept. of Disappearance, his second album of solo material. Just as on 2009’s Yours Truly, the Commuter, Lytle’s new batch of tracks maintains his knack for penning achingly beautiful songs full of swoon-worthy keyboard lines, touching lyrics, and warmly lush DIY production. (Landon Moblad)

With Sea Of Bees

8pm $20

Swedish American Hall

2174 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

Stolen Babies and the Fuxedos

While there’s a good chance that you’ll be terrified, bemused, appalled, or amazed by the aggressively madcap triple-header of Darling Freakhead, the Fuxedos, and Stolen Babies, you most certainly will not be bored. What with the polymetric layers of Darling Freakhead’s nihilistic introspection, the twisted, sideshow extroversion of the Fuxedos’ leader, Danny Shorago, and the steampunkish dark carnival menace of Stolen Babies, plus plenty of puppet carnage, costume changes, and apocalyptic accordion interludes, this is one evening guaranteed to haunt your consciousness, as well as your eardrums, for a long time afterwards. (Nicole Gluckstern)

9pm, $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Tiger Army

Berkeley-spawned rocker band Tiger Army released its self-titled debut record 13 years ago this month — so it’s a fitting time to return to the Bay Area for two special shows, part of “Octoberflame,” a fifth annual run of gigs that take place around each Halloween. Here’s hoping the band kicks off with its classic intro of “Nightfall” and “Nocturnal,” a psychobilly-tinged combo from the early days that would set the standard for the group’s darkly melodic sound — it would be a most appropriate soundtrack for the season. (McCourt)

With the Goddamn Gallows, Death March (Fri.); Suedehead, God Module (Sat.).

Fri/19-Sat/20, 8:30pm, $23

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com


SATURDAY 20

Trolley Dances

The idea started in San Diego, where streetcars actually are called trolleys. This hasn’t stopped the yearly version of San Francisco Trolley Dances to become a major hit among (some) tourists and (lots of) locals. Now in its ninth year, this mini-festival of public art has yet to run out of steam. More and more artists — and not only dancers — seem to be excited about the format. The offerings this time around include stilt walkers and circus artists, dance theater companies, carnival performers, and dancers from street to modern to African. You can do the whole tour on foot or on a bike if you are so inclined. For a map, consult the website. (Rita Felciano)

Sat/20-Sun/21, 11am- 2:45pm (every 45 min), free with Muni ticket

Starts at Mission and Fifth Street, SF

(415) 226-1139

www.epiphanydance.org

 

The Hula Show 2012

You might think about hula and imagine rapidly shaking grass skirts finishing off a day spent lounging on refreshingly warm, blue beaches. If you feel that Hawaiian vacation nostalgia hitting you, let Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu transport you back. Evoking the slow pace of Hawaiian life, their dances allow you to luxuriate in each movement like a cool breeze rustling through palm trees. But it’s not all poi and roasted pig — the San Francisco-based troupe brings things up to the city pace by mixing traditional Hula with more contemporary music and styles to create a dynamic stage performance. Be prepared to open your eyes to Polynesian dance as an art form in a way you’ll never see at a tourist-attraction luau. (Champlin)

Through Oct. 28

Sat/20, 8pm; Sun/21, 3pm, $35-$45

Palace of Fine Arts Theater

3301 Lyon

(415) 392-4400

www.palaceoffinearts.org

 

Wax Idols

Wax Idols’ badass frontperson Heather Fedewa (who goes by the moniker “Hether Fortune”) has dubbed her refreshingly unique garage pop-punk-death rock genre “morbid classics” and cites Christian Death as a prominent artistic influence. This raucous Oakland-based quartet brings it on heavy, but its fun, sardonic tunes are quite accessible to the less-than-devout death rockers among us. Fortune’s songs focus on morbidity, love, and defiance, and the band’s sound oscillates between the sunny, upbeat punk of “Gold Sneakers” and the dark and raw introspection of “The Last Drop.” Wax Idols recently finished recording their second LP, so stay tuned! (Mia Sullivan)

With Wymond Miles, Evil Eyes

8pm, $10

Brick and Mortar

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

Masquerotica

Those suffering post-Folsom exhibitionist blues need no longer wear overmuch clothing, for one night at least. Masquerotica takes over one of the largest venues in town — which, hooray, isn’t the hard to get to Cow Palace. The Concourse Exhibition Center is way closer to the center of town, way less mileage to truck your thigh highs and stripper-envy through. The bash promises a stadium-sized assortment of erotic artists, DJs, acrobats, and fetish designers vending their leather and lace wares. Rest assured that T&A won’t be the only stars present: Kink.com talent, contortionist Sylvia Currin, the ladies of Trannyshack, and lascivious visual artists will all be featured at the second year in a row of this no-streetwear-allowed blowout. (Caitlin Donohue)

8:30pm-3am, $55–$125

Concourse Exhibition Center

635 Eighth St., SF

www.masquerotica.com


SUNDAY 21

Kaki King

A talented guitarist who has done the indie-rock thing and just married her partner in New York last week (seriously California, get on it), don’t let Kaki King fool you; she’s not another Tegan and Sara. More about the music than the iconery, Kaki King is exploring life through her love of guitar and the result is genuinely heartfelt and evocative work. She began learning the instrument at the age of four but soon became more serious about drums. Luckily for us, she returned to guitar for her classical training in college. Percussive techniques remain a signature of her style though and are just one way she explores all that the instrument can do, including unique tunings and steel lap guitar. Her new album, Glow, is entirely instrumental and a little more experimental than previous work. She describes this step in a new direction as one of those things that you can’t believe you’ve made, like something bigger than you must have been helping out. (Champlin)

With Lady Lamb the Beekeeper

7pm, $20; 9pm, $15

Yoshi’s SF

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com


MONDAY 22

Ultraísta

Few artists split the difference between alt and mainstream as convincingly as Radiohead/Beck/R.E.M. mega-producer Nigel Godrich. Yet, while he’s built a giant reputation as a behind-the-scenes figure, the guy’s true musical sensibility has always remained somewhat of a mystery. Until now, with the development of Ultraísta: a hypnotic, Afrobeaty, Krautified synth-pop band he can proudly call his own. Think of them as a 21st century equivalent to Garbage: another supergroup of sorts, featuring assertive female vocals, synth contributions from an elusive knob-twiddler for the stars (in their case, Nirvana producer Butch Vig), and deep, layered production that’s constantly busy but never muddy or overstuffed. On Ultraísta’s self-titled debut, Godrich’s angular, heavily syncopated King of Limbs aesthetic remains in full force; we’re just glad to hear him writing the hooks this time around. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Astronauts, etc.

8pm, $18

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com


TUESDAY 23

Dan Deacon

If there were anything that could top the hyperkinetic charm of a Dan Deacon album, it would likely be a Dan Deacon show. The Baltimore-based experimental electronic musician treats live performances as joyous, life-affirming events full of enthusiastic crowd participation, all spearheaded by Deacon himself. America, his newest LP, continues to evolve the more nuanced and fleshed out sound he first dabbled with on Bromst in 2009. As a result, this tour’s live shows will include a full backing ensemble to help recreate America‘s frenetic blend of electronic composition and live orchestration. (Moblad)

With Height with Friends, Chester Endersby Gwazda, Alan Resnick

8pm, $16

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

And That’s What Little Girls Are Made Of Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.whatgirlsaremadeof.com. $20-30. Opens Thu/19, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Nov 4. Jennifer Wilson’s multimedia play chronicles her attempts to break into the male-dominated world of venture capital funds.

Fat Pig Boxcar Theatre Studio, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Opens Thu/18, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 10. Theater Toda presents Neil LaBute’s dark comedy about a man who faces scrutiny from his friends when he falls for a plus-sized woman.

Fierce Love: Stories From Black Gay Life New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-37. Previews Wed/17-Thu/18, 8pm. Opens Fri/19, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 28. Pomo Afro Homos performs a revival of of its 1991 hit about the struggles of African American gay men in America.

BAY AREA

Richard III Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Opens Fri/19, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs the Shakespeare classic.

Within the Wheel Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.raggedwing.org. Free. Previews Wed/17, 6pm. Opens Thu/18, 6pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 6pm (last entry 7:30pm; special Halloween show Oct 31). Through Nov 3. Ragged Wing Ensemble presents an immersive performance experience inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

ONGOING

Bound By Blood Boxcar Theatre Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.ianiroproductions.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 27. Opening on the heels of ACT’s production of The Normal Heart, local theater-maker Eric Inman’s Bound By Blood also explores the devastating human fallout of the AIDS crisis as experienced by the two families — one of blood relations and one of chosen friends — of a young gay man, whose death affects them all. Appearing onstage both as a ghost and in a series of flashbacks, Justin Walker (played by Inman) deals with his fear of dying by ditching his meds in favor of drink, and his fear of coming out to his conservative family by postponing the inevitable until it’s too late, leaving his friends holding the burden of his inconvenient truth in their unwilling hands. Awkward moments abound as Justin’s buddies ponder the ethics of outing him posthumously, as his mother (Sally Hogarty) and sister (CC Sheldon) bicker incessantly and his erstwhile "beard" Alice (Abigail Edber) pluckily spearheads the funeral planning. This is Inman’s first full-length play, which helps to explain the often-clunky dialogue and under-developed characters that unfortunately obscure the play’s dramatic potential, but the ideals he champions within — tolerance, self-acceptance, integrity, loyalty, love — are ones well worth exploring, even imperfectly. (Gluckstern)

Elect to Laugh Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race "so you don’t have to." No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

The Fifth Element: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 27. Comedic adaptation of the 1997 Luc Besson sci-fi epic.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 17). Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Geezer Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $30-100. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 18. Geoff Hoyle’s popular solo show about aging returns.

Love in the Time of Zombies Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; sftheaterpub.wordpress.com. Free ($5 donation suggested). Mon-Tue, 8pm. Through Oct 30. San Francisco Theater Pub performs Kirk Shimano’s "rom-zom-com."

Of Thee I Sing Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Wed, 7pm; Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 21. 42nd Street Moon performs George and Ira Gershwin’s classic political satire.

The Real Americans Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Oct 27. Dan Hoyle’s hit show, inspired by the people and places he encountered during his 100-day road trip across America in 2009, continues.

Roseanne: Live! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm (no shows Oct 31). Through Nov 14. Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and more star in this tribute to the long-running sitcom.

The Scotland Company Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.thunderbirdtheatre.com. $15-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 27. Thunderbird Theatre Company performs Jake Rosenberg’s new comedy.

Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Thrillpeddlers’ seasonal assortment of yeasty Grand Guignol playlets is a mixed bag of treats, but it all goes so nicely with the autumnal slink into early nights and dark cravings. Fredrick Whitney’s Coals of Fire is lightly amusing, if far from smoking, as a two-hander about a blind older matron (Leigh Crow) who discovers her young companion (Zelda Koznofski, alternating nights with Nancy French) has been secretly schtupping her husband. I’m a Mummy is a short, not very effective musical interlude by Douglas Byng, featuring the bright pair of Jim Jeske and Annie Larson as Mr. and Mrs., respectively. The titular feature, The Bride of Death, written by Michael Phillis and directed by Russell Blackwood, proves a worthy centerpiece, unfolding an intriguing, well-acted tale about a reporter (Phillis) and his photographer (Flynn DeMarco) arriving at a stormy castle to interview a strangely youthful Grand Guignol stage star (Bonni Suval) making her film debut. After another, this time more rousing musical number, Those Beautiful Ghouls (with music and lyrics by Scrumbly Koldewyn; directed and choreographed by D’Arcy Drollinger), comes the evening’s real high point, The Twisted Pair by Rob Keefe, acted to the bloody hilt by leads Blackwood and DeMarco as the titular duo of scientists driven mad by an experimental batch of ‘crazy’ glue. All of it comes capped, of course, by the company’s signature lights-out spook show. (Avila)

"Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep" Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50 (festival pass, $75). Previews Oct 25, 7:30pm and Oct 26, 8pm (part two); Nov 1, 7:30pm and Nov 2, 8pm (part three). Opens Thu/18, 7:30pm (part one); Oct 27, 8pm (part two); and Nov 3, 8pm (part three). Runs Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 18. Cutting Ball performs a festival of August Strindberg in three parts: The Ghost Sonata, The Pelican and The Black Glove, and Storm and Burned House.

The Waiting Period Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Oct 27. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 24. Lynne Kaufman’s new play stars Warren David Keith as the noted spiritual figure.

Assassins Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 4. Shotgun Players interrupts this season of dreary electoral debates with an important announcement about the country you live in, as the sure and provocative 1990 musical by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and John Weidman (book) stitches together American history’s odd assortment of successful and failed presidential assassins to explore the darker recesses of the national mythos. Through an eclectic score of deft period-specific songs and the narrative framework of a feverish carnival shooting gallery — overseen by a nefarious proprietor (Jeff Garrett) — a pageant of kooks and rebels parades, beginning with pioneer assassin John Wilkes Booth (an aptly imposing Galen Murphy-Hoffman). He, in turn, acts as a sort of patron saint to those that follow in his footsteps — including Charles Guiteau (Steven Hess), Leon Czolgosz (Dan Saski), Giuseppe Zangara (Aleph Ayin), John Hinckley (Danny Cozart), Sam Byck (Ryan Drummond), Sara Jane Moore (Rebecca Castelli), Squeaky Fromme (Cody Metzger), and of course Lee Harvey Oswald (Kevin Singer, in a part that doubles with that of the Balladeer). Throughout, director Susannah Martin’s strong cast and musical director David Möschler’s lively eight-piece band insure a raucous, thoughtful, and intimate American fever dream. (Avila)

An Iliad Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-77. Opens Wed/17, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Nov 11. Berkeley Rep performs Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s Homer-inspired tale.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 16. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Richard the First: Part One, Part Two, Part Three Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $14-25. Opens Thu/18, 8pm (part one); Fri/19, 8pm (part two); and Sat/20, 8pm (part three). Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (three-part marathon Sundays, Nov 11 and 18, 2, 5, 8pm). Through Nov 18. This Central Works Method Trilogy presents a rotating schedule of three plays by Gary Graves about the king known as "the Lionheart."

Sex, Slugs and Accordion Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $10. Wed, 8pm. Through Nov 14. Jetty Swart, a.k.a. Jet Black Pearl, stars in this "wild and exotic evening of song."

33 Variations TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 28. TheatreWorks performs Moisés Kaufman’s drama about a contemporary musicologist struggling to solve one of Beethoven’s greatest mysteries, and a connecting story about the composer himself.

Topdog/Underdog Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Wed/17, 7:30pm; Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm (also Sat/20, 2pm); Sun/21, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company performs Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winner about a contentious pair of brothers.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am; Nov 23-25, 11am. Through Nov 25. Louis "The Amazing Bubble Man" Pearl brings his lighter-than-air show back to the Marsh.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Alonzo King LINES Ballet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. Fri/19-Sat/20 and Oct 24-27, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Oct 28. The company celebrates 30 years with its fall home season.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Fri, 8pm, through Oct 26: "This Just In!," $20. Sat, 8pm, through Oct 27: "Improvised Horror Musical," $20.

"Comedy Bodega" Esta Noche Nightclub, 3079 16th St, SF; www.comedybodega.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. No cover (one drink minumum). This week: Amy Miller, Kurt Weitzmann, Martini Paratore, and Jessica Sele.

"Comikaze Lounge" Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; www.comikazelounge.com. Wed/17, 8pm. Free. Stand-up with Casey Ley and more.

"Crooked Little Hearts" Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm. $20. The Ananta Project’s home season includes a world premiere that uses dance to explore the nuances of human intimacy.

"Gravity (and other large things)" NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.performancelab.org. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm; Sun/21, 4pm. $12-25. Right Brain Performancelab present this evening-length dance-theater piece.

"Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; michelemyers2012.eventbrite.com. Fri-Sun and Oct 31, 8pm. Through Oct 31. $25. Drag superstar Raya Light returns in the seasonally-appropriate horror musical.

"The Hula Show 2012" Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.naheihulu.org. Sat/20 and Oct 26-27, 8pm; Sun/21 and Oct 28, 8pm (children’s matinee Oct 28, noon). $35-90. Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu performs its annual show, featuring a hula satirizing President Obama’s birth certificate controversy.

"Let Us Find the Words" Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; www.thecjm.org. Thu/18, 6:30pm; Fri.19, 1pm. Free with museum admission ($5-12). Actors Dominique Frot and Alexander Muheum present a dramatic reading of letters between poets Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan.

"Perverts Put Out: The Election Erection Edition" Center for Sex and Culture, 1369 Mission, SF; www.sexandculture.org. Sat/20, 7:30. $10-20. Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard host performances by Jen Cross, Greta Cristina, Gina de Vries, and more.

"San Francisco Magic Parlor" Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. $40. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

"San Francisco Trolley Dances 2012" 925 Mission, SF; www.epiphanydance.org. Sat/20-Sun/21, tours leave at 11am, 11:45am, 12:30pm, 1:15pm, 2pm, and 2:45pm. Free with Muni fare ($2). Climb aboard Muni for a unique performance experience at this annual event presented by Kim Epifano’s Epiphany Productions.

ShadowLight Theatre St. Cyprian’s Church, 2097 Turk, SF; www.noevalleymusicseries.com. Sat/20, 8pm. $15. Balinese shadow puppet theater with live gamelan accompaniment.

"Smack Dab" Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; www.magnetsf.org. Wed/17, 8pm. Free. Open mic featuring local authors Belo Cipriani and Jim Provenzano.

"Times Bones" Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California, SF; www.mjdc.org. Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm; Sun/21, 7pm. $18-31. Margaret Jenkins Dance Company previews a new work that will premiere in 2013.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Visit www.sfbg.com/venue-guide for venue information. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 17

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bob Dylan Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.apeconconcerts.com. 7:30pm, $59.50-$125.50.

First Aid Kit, Dylan LeBlance Fillmore. 8pm, $22.50.

Scott Holt Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Lee Huff vs JC Rockit Johnny Foley’s. 9:30pm.

Imperative Reaction, Everything goes Cold, Ludovico Technique, Witch Was Right DNA Lounge. 9pm, $18.

Sonny Landreth, Danny Click Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $22.

Sarah McQuaid Biscuits and Blues. 8:30pm, $10.

Minus Gravity, Headlines, James Cavern Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9:30pm, $10-$12.

Moral Crux, Deadones, Antizocial Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $8.

Rocket Queens, Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers Elbo Room. 9pm, $8.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Seatraffic, Real Numbers, American Professionals Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Soul Train Revival Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Orlando Cela Frankenart Mall, 515 Balboa, SF; www.orlandocela.com. 8pm, $10.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Frisky Frolics Rite Spote Cafe. 9pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Radney Foster, Misisipi Mike Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita MORE! and Joshua J host this dance party.

Coo-Yah! Slate Bar, 2925 16th St, SF; www.slate-sf.com. 10pm, free. With Vinyl Ambassador, DJ Silverback, DJs Green B and Daneekah.

Hardcore Humpday Happy Hour RKRL, 52 Sixth St, SF; (415) 658-5506. 6pm, $3.

Mercedez Munro, and Ginger Snap.

Obey the Kitty: Justin Milla Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsanfrancisco.com. 10pm, $5.

THURSDAY 18

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP.

Adam Ant, Brothers of Brazil Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $32.

Emily Bonn and the Vivants, Howell Devine, Stephanie Nilles Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

Chris Cohen, Ashley Eriksson, Coconut Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $10.

Bob Dylan Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.apeconconcerts.com. 7:30pm, $59.50-$125.50.

Freelance Whales, Geographer Mezzanine. 9pm, $20.

Generators, Sore Thumbs, Shell Corporation, Bastards of Young Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Jon Gonzalez 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 7pm.

Iron Lung, Process, Effluxus, Hunting Party Knockout. 10pm, $8.

Jane’s Addiction, Thenewno2 Warfield. 8pm, $52.50-$62.50.

John Lawton Trio Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Mansfield Aviator, Butterfly Knives, Capkins El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Meters Experience, Dredgetown Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $15-$20.

Minibosses, Crashfast, Gnarboots Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Poi Dog Pondering Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $21.

Rudy Columbini Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Soft Pack, Crocodiles, Heavy Hawaii Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

Tift Merrit, Amy Cook Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $16-$18.

Rags Tuttle vs Lee Huff Johnny Foley’s. 9:30pm.

Van She, popscene DJs Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $13-$15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cheryl Bentyne Rrazz Room. 8pm, $35.

Science Fiction Jazz 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 10pm.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Emily Anne Rite Spot Cafe. 9pm, free.

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-$7. With DJ-host Pleasuremaker.

All 80s Thursday Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). The best of 80s mainstream and underground.

Base: Sasha Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsanfrancisco.com. 10pm, $5-$10.

Hubba Hubba Revue: Asylum DNA Lounge. 9pm, $12-$15.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 19

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bleached Palms, Radishes Bender’s, 806 S. Van Ness, SF; www.bendersbar.com. 9pm, $5.

Bombay Bicycle Club, Vacationer Fillmore. 9pm, $22.50.

Coo Coo Birds, Electric Shepherd, Electric Magpie Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7.

Aaron Freeman Independent. 9pm, $25.

Lee Huff, Rome Balestrieri, Nathan Temby Johnny Foley’s. 9pm.

John Brown’s Body, Kyle Hollingsworth Band Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.

Kids on a Crime Spree, GRMLN, Manatee Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Jason Lytle, Sea of Bees Swedish American Hall. 8pm, $18-$20.

Meters Experience, Tracorum, Swoop Unit Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $15-$20.

Mixers Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Mustache Harbor, Sean Tabor Bimbo’s. 9pm, $22.

Night Hikes, Correspondence School, Houses of Light Amnesia. 7pm.

Bill Ortiz Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Beth Orton, Sam Amidon Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $30.

Stolen Babies, Fuxedos, Darling Freakhead Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Tiger Army, Goddamn Gallows, Death March Slim’s. 8:30pm, $23.

Whigs, Record Company, Fake Your Own Death Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $12-$15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Black Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 9Pm, $10.

Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes Rrazz Room. 8pm, $30-$37.50.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass Bonanza Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $6-$10. With Roseman Creek.

Kaweh Monroe, 473 Broadway, SF; www.kaweh.com. 9:30pm, $15. Flamenco rumba salsa.

Lee Vilensky Trio Rite Spot Cafe. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Albino! Fela Kuti Birthday Celebration Show Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

DJ What’s His Fuck Riptide Tavern. 9pm.

Fedorable Queer Dance Party El Rio. 9pm, free.

Joe Lookout, 3600 16th St.,SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Eight rotating DJs.

Odyssey with Neon Leon Public Works. 10pm, $10.

Old School JAMZ El Rio. 9pm. Fruit Stand DJs spinning old school funk, hip-hop, and R&B.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs.

Peaches (DJ set) 103 Harriet, SF; www.1015.com. 9pm.

Rage By the Pound DNA Lounge. 9pm, $25. With Funtcase, High Rankin, Schoolboy, Nerd Rage.

Toolroom Knights: Paul Thomas, David Gregory Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsanfrancisco.com. 10Pm, $20-$30.

SATURDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bassnectar, Ghostland Observatory, Gramatik, Gladkill Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.apeconconcerts.com. 8pm, $40.

Rome Balestrieri, Nathan Temby, Lee Huff Johnny Foley’s. 9pm.

Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $38.

Bottle Kids, Loose Cuts 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 7pm.

Cheap Time, Unnatural Helpers, Warm Soda, Krells Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $10.

Zach Deputy Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $15.

Willis Earl Beal, Terese Taylor, Sean Smith Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Foreign Exchange Mezzanine. 9pm.

GoKart Mozart Biscuits and Blues. 8:30 and 10:15pm, $10.

Jorma Kaukonen Swedish American Hall. 7 and 10pm, $32-$35.

Love Songs, Bar Feeders, Cyclops Bender’s, 800 S. Van Ness, SF; www.bendersbar.com. 10pm, $5.

Oak Creek Band Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Pre Legendary, Chingadero Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Skin Divers Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Lavay Smith Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Stars, Diamond Rings, California Wives Fillmore. 8pm, $29.50.

Rodger Stella, Bren’t Lewiis Ensemble, Jencks Hemlock Tavern. 5pm, $6.

Tea Leaf Green, Mahgeetah Independent. 9pm, $20.

Tiger Army, Suedehead, God Module Slim’s. 8:30pm, $23.

Nick Waterhouse, Allah-Las Bimbo’s. 9pm, $18.

Michael Ward with Dogs and Fishes Riptide Tavern. 9:30pm, free.

Wax Idols, Wymond Miles, Evil Eyes Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $7-$10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes Rrazz Room. 7 and 9:30pm, $30-$37.50.

"UP: San Francisco Street Festival and Exposition" 5M, Fifth and Mission, SF; sf.urbanprototyping.org. With Mark Fell, Aaron David Ross, Afrikan Sciences, Brian Hock, Loric, and more.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Go Van Gogh Revolution Cafe, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

Tony Ybarra Red Poppy Art House. 7:30pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Bootie SF: More Cowbell DNA Lounge. 9pm, $15.

Dancing Ghosts Hot Spot, 1414 Market St., SF; www.dancingghosts.com, 9:30 pm, $5, free before 10. DJs Xander and Le Perv host this darkwave dance party.

"DSF Clothing Co. and Art Gallery Anniversary" Public Works. 9pm, free with RSVP. With Motown on Monday DJs, Nickodemus, Afrolicious.

Fringe Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. Indie music video dance party with DJ Blondie K and subOctave.

Masquerotica Concourse Exhibition Center, 636 Eighth St, SF; masquerotica2012.eventbrite. 8:30pm. With Stanton Warriors, Ron Kat’s Katdelic, Action Jackson, Hubba Hubba Revue, and more.

Nickodemus and Afrolicious Public Works Loft. 10pm, $5.

OK Hole Amnesia. 9pm.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs.

Radio Franco Bissap, 3372 19th St, SF; (415) 826 9287. 6 pm. Rock, Chanson Francaise, Blues. Senegalese food and live music.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-$10. With DJs Lucky, Paul Paul, Phengren Oswald.

Smiths Party Slate Bar, 2925 16th St, SF; www.slate-sf.com. 10pm, $5. Sounds of the Smiths, Morrissey, the Cure, and New Order.

Wild Nights Kok BarSF, 1225 Folsom, SF; www.kokbarsf.com. 9pm, $3. With DJ Frank Wild.

SUNDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Babmu Station, Inna Vision Independent. 9pm, $18.

Craig Horton Biscuits and Blues. 7 and 9pm, $15.

Tony Lucca, Justin Hopkins Cafe Du Nord. 8:30pm, $15.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Dee-1 Fillmore. 8pm, $25.

Mako Sica, Brandon Nickel, Jeff Zittrain Band Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $6.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Socionic Rockit Room. 8pm, $8.

Allen Stone, Yuna, Tingsek Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $17.50.

Mike Stud Slim’s. 8:30pm, $13-$16.

Taking Back Sunday, Man Overboard Regency Ballroom. 7:30pm, $27.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Kaki King Yoshi’s SF. 7pm, $20; 9pm, $15.

Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes Rrazz Room. 7pm, $30-$37.50.

Rob Reich Trio Bliss Bar, 4026 24 St, SF; .www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Hillbilly Swing, B Stars Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Sofia Talvik Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

DANCE CLUBS

Daytime Realness El Rio. 3pm, $8-$10. With Heklina, Stanley Frank, and DJ Carnita.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6 after 9:30pm. With DJs Sep, Ludichris, Silver Back.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2.

MONDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Damir Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Shiny Toy Guns, MNDR, Of Verona Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $17.

Allen Stone, Yuna, Tingsek Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $17.50.

Ultraista, Astronauts, etc. Independent. 8pm, $18.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bossa Nova Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 722-6620. 8-11:30pm, free. Live acoustic Bossa Nova.

Gregg Marx Rrazz Room. 8pm.

Philippe Petit, Xambuca Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $16.

Reuben Rye Rite Spot Cafe. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Crazy Mondays Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF; www.thebeautybar.com. 10pm, free. Hip-hop and other stuff.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Soul Cafe John Colins Lounge, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm. R&B, Hip-Hop, Neosoul, reggae, dancehall, and more with DJ Jerry Ross.

Vibes’N’Stuff El Amigo Bar, 3355 Mission, SF; (415) 852-0092. 10pm, free. Conscious jazz and hip-hop with DJs Luce Lucy, Vinnie Esparza, and more.

TUESDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bitch Magnet, Life Coach, Gold Medalists, Imperils Rickshaw Stop. 7:30pm, $15.

Calexico, Dodos Fillmore. 8pm, $25.

Tim Cohen, Jessica Pratt, Dylan Shearer Amnesia. 9:15pm.

Dan Deacon, Height with Friends, Chester Endersby Gwazda, Alan Resnick Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Nick Halstead Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $16.

Moonbell, Golden Awesome, Indian Summer Knockout. 9:30pm.

Mt Hammer, Ash Thursday, Manzanita Falls El Rio. 7pm, $5.

Room of Voices, Broun Fellinis Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Rusted Root Independent. 8pm, $25.

Stan Erhart Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Qumran Orphics, Bill Orcutt, Marissa Anderson Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $6.

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 17

“Lube: Deciding Which is Best for You” Feelmore510, 1703 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 891-0199, www.feelmore510.com. 7:30pm, free. Oakland adult shop Feelmore510 wants you to educate yourself before you lube yourself. The adult store is hosting an informative workshop that will school you on the lube market, the best kinds of lube for various sensitive skin types, and the ingredients in lube. People of all genders and sexualities are welcome.

THURSDAY 18

“Woman Warrior” Poetry Reading Poetry Center, Humanities Building, SFSU, 1600 Holloway, SF. (415) 338-2227, creativestate.sfsu.edu. 4:30pm, free. Gulf War veteran Sean McClain Brown, who suffers from PTSD, credits renowned writer, activist, and professor emerita at UC Berkeley Maxine Hong Kingston for saving his life when she became his writing teacher. Their friendship will be on full display as they join together for a reading of Hong Kingston’s beloved work, hosted by SFSU’s Poetry Center.

FRIDAY 19

Release party for Gratta Wines’ new “Garage Blend” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. (415) 282-3325, www.mugsywinebar.tumblr.com. 5:30-8:30pm, free. Mugsy’s Wine Bar will be occupying El Rio’s scenic back patio to debut the Bayview’s Gratta Wines new release entitled “Garage Blend.” The new wine is an amalgamation of Sonoma Cabernet, Zinfandel, and Petit Sirah. Complementing the wine at this event will be oysters from El Rio and Italian flatbread from Piadina. Yum!

2 Blocks of Art Sixth St. between Market and Howard, SF. (415) 553-4433, www.urbansolutionssf.org. 4-8pm, free. In conjunction with the 24 Days of Central Market Arts Festival, Urban Solutions will be painting two blocks in the mid-market area with a variety of local art. The festival’s main aim is to showcase the intriguing collection of galleries, theaters, shops and bars that make up the mid-market neighborhood. Think Sunday Streets but hella condensed.

SATURDAY 20

Native Plant Sale Miraloma Park Improvement Club, 350 O’Shaughnessy, SF. (415) 531-2140, www.cnps-yerbabuena.org. 1-5pm, free. Is your garden sorely lacking “native” plants? Then skip on over to the Yerba Buena Native Plant sale, where vendors will be selling a diverse array of flora and fauna native to Northern California.

Lit-Night at Rolling-Out: Lina Shustarovich and the Immigrant Experience Rolling-Out, 1722 Taraval, SF. jstevensonstories.blogspot.com. 7pm, free. Memoirist and former editor at Switchback magazine Lina Shustarovich will be reading excerpts from her upcoming work, detailing her childhood as part of the Russian-Jewish diaspora. Post-reading, there will be an open mic for others to expound upon their immigrant experiences.

Leap’s Sandcastle Contest Ocean Beach, Great American and Fulton, SF. (415) 512-1899, www.leaparts.org. 10am-4pm, free. We all know Ocean Beach is way too cold to swim in without an inch-thick wetsuit — but one thing it’s good for is hosting sandcastle building competitions. Local arts education nonprofit Leap will be a hosting Leap Year version of the contest that will feature architects and engineers teaming up with elementary school students. Participants have just four hours to create the best and most imaginative sand sculptures. The artistically challenged need not sigh, because there’ll be a “Community Castle” area where they’ll be able to frolic in.

23rd Annual Potrero Hill Festival Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, 953 De Haro, SF. (415) 826-8025, www.potrerofestival.com. 9am-4pm, $12. Attention foodies with a special affinity for New Orleans-style treats: the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House will be kicking off its 23rd annual Potrero Hill Festival with a special New Orleans brunch prepared by the California Culinary Academy. Post brunch the festival will spill over onto 20th St. between Missouri and Wisconsin and will continue the party with the expected block party pageantry, like food trucks, live kids entertainment, and pop-up arts and crafts shops.

SUNDAY 21

SF Architectural Heritage Free Community Day Haas-Lilienthal House, 2007 Franklin, SF. www.sfheritage.org. 11am-4pm, free. Pacific Heights sure has some swanky residences, but prepare yourself to witness one of the swankiest houses in Pac Heights. The house in question is the 1886 Victorian masterpiece Haas-Lilienthal house. The SF Architectural Heritage organization will serve as your guide as it hosts a guided tour of the recently designated “National Treasure.” Late 19th century monocles not included.

TUESDAY 23

Chris Ware and Charles Burns JCCSF, 3200 California, SF. www.jccsf.org/arts. 7pm, free reservations requested. Genre-busting graphic novelists Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth) and Charles Burns (Black Hole, X’ed Out) will be holding a conversation on their new works and the nature of graphic novels hosted by the local JCCSF.

SF Stories: Alejandro Murguia

Andrew Lam
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SF Stories: Alejandro Murguia

 

46TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL I saw Jack Micheline reciting Skinny Dynamite

on the corner of 16th & Valencia

and he was angry

and the next day he was dead on the last BART train to Concord

and maybe that’s why he was angry

I met Harold Norse shuffling around in a beaten world

his pockets stuffed with poems only hipsters read

It’s a cesspool out here he sighed

before retreating to his room in the Albion Hotel

where angels honeycomb the walls with dreams

and the rent is paid with angry poems

I heard Oscar Zeta Acosta’s brown buffalo footsteps

pounding the Valencia Corridor

and he was shouting poetry at the sick junkies

nodding with their wasted whores

in the lobby of the Hotel Royan “The Mission’s finest”

and even the furniture was angry

I joined the waiters at the bus stop

the waitresses the norteños trios the flowers sellers

the blind guitarist wailing boleros at a purple sky

the shirtless vagrant vagabond ranting at a parking meter

the spray paint visionary setting fire to the word

and I knew this was the last call

We were tired of living from the scraps of others

We were tired of dying for our own chunk of nothing

And I saw this barrio as a freight train

a crazy Mexican bus careening out of control

a mutiny aboard a battleship 

and every porthole filled with anger

And we were going to stay angry

And we were not leaving

Not ever leaving

El corazón del corazón de La Misión

El Camino Real ends here

 

 

SF Stories: Zahir Janmohamed

Andrew Lam
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2
SF Stories: Zahir Janmohamed

46TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL Of the many things I adore about San Francisco, one of them is that the word “Palestine” is not treated like Voldermort’s name, the one that dare not be uttered. You can say you are Palestinian here and no one will freak out. San Franciscans, most of them at least, will not tell you — as Newt Gringrich did — that your culture is invented, or that your identity (or your struggle) is not a valued part of the tapestry of this city.

I am not used to this. I spent the past nine years living in Washington DC, where I became accustomed to meeting Arab shop owners who dodged questions about their country of origin. Some feared a backlash from customers. Others worried about government harassment and eavesdropping. One Yemeni shopkeeper near the Pentagon even went as far as creating to-go boxes with Americans flags imprinted on them, the words “we are proud of you” under each flag. Unfortunately, it’s like this now in many cities in the US, where to be Arab, Iranian or South Asian is to abdicate your ethnic identity, to pretend it’s just not there.

That’s not exactly true in San Francisco. This city isn’t perfect and it has its own ugly past and current struggles with racial integration — but San Francisco at least tries to inculcate its motto on all who are lucky enough to live here: just be who you are. You can fly a Palestinian flag outside your business and chances are you may even attract more customers because of it. And if you show up to work wearing a red, white and blue covered hijab or turban in the city, people may very well laugh at you.

Last week I walked through the Mission district interviewing Palestinian American business owners. On Mission Street, I saw my friend Ashraf sitting on a bar stool at the café he opened two years ago. The San Francisco born Palestinian-American, whose parents were born outside of Jerusalem, wore an SF Giants baseball cap and adjusted it often during our meeting, revealing a full head of hair already graying at the age of 34.

Ashraf remembers car trips with his parents to the Samiramis Grocery just down Mission Street. Samir Khoury, a Palestinian Christian from Ramallah who came to San Francisco in 1953, opened the iconic grocery store in 1972. For the longest time it was the only place where Ashraf’s family could buy zaatar or rent Egyptian movies. It always had everything we had back home, Ashraf says.

Ashraf points out that within a small radius of his cafe, there are a now number of Palestinian owned businesses, including Philz Coffee and Bi-Rite Creamery.

“But no one really knows these are Palestinian owned businesses,” Ashraf says. “And even if they found out, no one would really care.”

I tell Ashraf about a sandwich shop I used to visit in Washington DC where the owner insisted on telling everyone that he was Jordanian. One day the owner pulled me aside and confessed he was really Palestinian from Bethlehem but told people he was Jordanian because he thought it “sounded better.”

When Ashraf hears this he laughs. “It’s not like that here,” he says. “In San Francisco you don’t have to play that act.”

Zahir Janmohamed is a San Francisco writer and former Congressional aide.

Pre-lloween

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Pre-lloween

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO “We wanted to put together something that truly reflects San Francisco on its most popular holiday,” DJ Syd Gris of Opulent temple tells me over the phone. “A titillating, intoxicating kaleidoscope of San Francisco flavor with soulful, sexy music. And zombie strippers.”

He’s talking about the massive Masquerotica (Sat/20, 8:30pm-3am $55–$125, creative costume expected. San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 8th St., SF. www.maquerotica.com ), a perfect kick-off to the insane Halloween season, which pretty much does include frisky input from most of the more risquee club scenes SF’s got going — Kink.com, Anon Salon, Mission Control, Vau de Vire, Hubba Hubba Revue, Bondage-A-Go-Go, Asian Diva Girls, Club Exotica … and then for kicks, Trannyshack. Hey, different strokes! Please have sex with Trannyshack if you want.

There also promises to be some intriguing tunes, from electro-house headliners Stanton Warriors and 15-piece funk band Action Jackson right on through to the early R&B Hard French DJs and hard-driving Mr. Gris himself. (We’ll also probably be hearing from a lot from gay rapper Cazwell’s alabaster abs as well. Squee squee!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyO9D3t0jVM

“The demise of the Exotic Erotic Ball here a few years ago provided an opportunity to put the focus back on local talent while still keeping the sexy vibe. We’d like to think that we’re sanding off some of the rougher edges of what the Erotic Exotic and the Castro became, so that people feel more comfortable being themselves. Or getting out of themselves. Whatever the case may be.”

Although there’s no hardcore sex allowed at Masquerotica (no fear, there’ll be plenty of makeout areas), why do San Franciscans weave so much hanky-panky into our pagan revels? Or did I just answer my own question?

“Halloween is partly about being able to express yourself in ways that don’t involve judgement, and so a lot of subcultural communities found acceptance during the holiday,” Gris said. “We want to honor that. We’re a big tent, and we want to fill it with all the people and things that turn us on in the Bay Area.”

 

MOVE D

I have a scary-powerful crush on this wizard of wide-ranging techno, whose epic sets with live bells and whistles are painterly in their soundscape effects and irresistible in their atmospheres. You can dance to them, too. With DJs Conor, Jonah Sharp, and Mike B.

Thu/18, 9pm-3am, $12–$15. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

 

REAGENZ

Oh hey, did I mention that the amazing Move D was in town from Berlin? Why not take advantage of that, and his fruitful collaboration with local hero Jonah Sharp, and present them both in their ambitious ambient live-entity form, Reagenz. Tech heads like me are already wetting their drawers for this installment of the Realtime live techno party, also featuring Moniker, Polk & Hyde, and Its Own Infinite Flower.

Fri/19, 9pm, $12–$15. 222 Hyde, SF. www.222hyde.com

 

ODYSSEY

One of the city’s most beloved underground parties emerges to celebrate its anniversary, with SF legend DJ Neon Leon at the helm. Expect tons of warm house tunes and love up the wazoo (plus some nifty projections, too!) With DJs Steve Fabus, Robin Simmons, Jason Kendig, Robert Jeffrey, and Viv Baron.

Fri/19, 10pm-4am, $10. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.public.com

 

HALLOWEEN! THE BALLAD OF MICHELE MYERS

What do you get when you mashup all your favorite teenage slasher flicks with The Facts of Life? Grindr! Kidding. You get this horrifically hilarious musical brought to us by one of SF’s most twisted drag queens, Raya Light. As glamour-ghoul Michele Myers, she’s gonna tear you apart to a disco beat. And you’ll be singing right along.

Fri/19-Wed/31, 8pm and 10pm, $20. CounterPulse, 1310 Mission, SF. michelemyers2012.eventbrite.com

 

DEATH BECOMES HER

You know you live for that campfest movie — wherein Goldie Hawn eats Meryl Streep while Bruce Willis drives away with Freeway the Dog? Something like that, but also the Fountain of Youth and Isabella Rossellini in something really strappy. Anyway, Peaches Christ is giving the 1992 flick, which introduced many of us toddlers to the wonders of CGI, the inimitable uproarious Castro Theatre treatment. Heklina of Trannyshack joins her for a wild live pre-show, with Lady Bear, L. Ron Hubby, and the city’s drag-erati.

Sat/20, 8pm, $20–$25. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. www.peacheschrist.com

SF Stories: Laura Fraser

Andrew Lam
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3
SF Stories: Laura Fraser

46TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL

People marvel that I manage to live in San Francisco on what I make as a freelance writer. They wonder if I have a trust fund, secretly write speeches for CEOs, or run a phone-sex business on the side. They figure I must somehow make over six figures to live in a three-bedroom flat in the Haight with high ceilings, hardwood floors, a big kitchen, and a garden as big as a park.

No: I’m able to be a writer in San Francisco because of rent control.

If it weren’t for rent control, I would not live in the city I love, which has been my home since 1984, when I scored an apartment on Waller Street with one woman I’d met in a magazine collective called Processed World and another who’d just gotten off the Green Tortoise bus.

At first I wasn’t sure I wanted the apartment. It was filthy; the living room had been subdivided into four sections with hanging sheets, and only cockroaches dared to enter the kitchen. It was $750 a month, which seemed astronomical to us at the time. But it was so rundown that no one had ever bothered to rip away the original wainscoting, Victorian cabinets, hardwood floors, or clawfoot tub, so it had a lot of charm under its grime. The landlord — an entrepreneurial hippie who bought about ten buildings when the Haight was at its most depressed — insisted we do community service as part of our rent. We pooled our money, took the place, and began scrubbing and painting.

Over the years, by sheer luck, I never moved. Instead, people moved in with me. I lived with a constant parade of roommates, most of them artists or people who worked for nonprofits. There was a drummer, a guitarist, and a composer. Maria was a young journalist from Mexico City who came here to write about migrant farm workers. Stevious was a political refugee from South Africa who worked at Mother Jones. Gail was a chef who left to join the circus. Natalie taught English to new immigrants. Julia was an avant-garde theatre director. Danielle was a filmmaker who wanted to make a documentary about Ghana, where she’d lived in the Peace Corps. Vince worked for the alternative press. All these people had moved to San Francisco because they wanted to do something creative or humanitarian, and to Waller Street, because our rent made that possible.

During the dot-com boom, my flat became a refuge. Two friends, a photographer and a musician, had been effectively evicted by a landlord who made life so hellish they’d leave, so he could raise the rent at a time when Mission rents went up 40 percent in a year. They had nowhere to go, so they moved in with me. It was a very San Francisco story: the guy was my great-grand-ex, who used to live in the flat above me when we dated, and now he was living in my house with his girlfriend. We cooked and played music and got along fine, until they moved into a flat they could afford — in Oakland.

Until the dot-com years, thanks to rent control, you could make a living as an artist or activist and manage to live in San Francisco, even if it meant eating a lot of burritos. Today, that’s not possible, unless you’re as old as I am and somehow had the luck to hang on to the second apartment you moved into after college. I may envy people who had the foresight to buy real estate in the 1980s or 1990s, but the fact is, I didn’t have the money then, either, for what now seems like a laughably low down payment. Rent control is my equity. The neighbors who live in the mirror-image apartment in my building are not artists or activists; they are tech people, whose rent is double mine, and who do make six figures.

Recently, a talented young novelist visited my flat and was amazed at how spacious it is. He’s struggling to keep on living in San Francisco, and I don’t know how he and his wife manage writing and running an international creative nonprofit while paying our city’s rents, especially with a child. I do know that unless San Francisco makes room for people like him, as it made room for me, with rent control, we will lose the distinctive character of our city—or what remains of it. Rent control made it possible for me to be a writer, but 25 years later, it’s a lot harder for him.

Rent control is essential to keeping San Francisco’s creative character. But it isn’t sufficient if the city wants to help young people who are trying to embark on creative careers outside of the tech sector in San Francisco today. We need affordable housing; we need rent controls to extend to vacant apartments; mainly, we need to want to keep San Francisco weird.

Laura Fraser is the author of the New York Times bestseller An Italian Affair, among other books.

Darker than dark

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Darker than dark

arts@sfbg.com

FILM It is one of those hard truths one must learn to live with: Quentin Tarantino will always have seen more obscure exploitation movies than you. His new Django Unchained will arrive just in time for Christmas like a gift wrapped severed limb, leaving dedicated fanboy/fangirl types just weeks yet to immerse themselves in the world of spaghetti westerns to which it pays homage.

That makes two features in a row he’s made inspired by 1960s and 70s Euro trash cinema, following 2009’s Inglourious Basterds, which tipped hat to the era’s myriad international-coproduction war flicks. If you saw the obscure 1978 Italian film that was based on (and named after), you also probably already know who and what a Django is, how to pronounce him, and maybe even the factoid that countless (seriously, no one knows how many) ersatz Django “sequels” were made to cash in on the 1966 original’s success.

If not, join the more innocent multitudes at the multiplex come December, many of whom will no doubt be asking for one ticket to “Duh-jango,” please. There’s no shame in knowing nothing about such cultural marginalia. But what even faintly hipster-identifying person would admit to not knowing everything there is to know — even being bored with that knowledge — behind Reservoir Dogs (1992), the now 20-year-old Citizen Kane of indie meta guy flicks? How many people can not only quote its every line, but quote the every line of at least a few amongst its own umpteen mostly lousy imitations (yep, that includes you, 1999’s Boondock Saints)?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvoKT481EmU

In the gradual groundswell of attention that greeted Dogs back then, viewers confidently cited Tarantino’s inspirations (as did he himself), noting the imprint of everything from classic noir titles to Kurosawa. Yet one movie that had a very direct influence was almost completely absent from those discussions, failing to rise from its prior two decades of complete obscurity even in the two decades post-Dogs.

Together at last in one canine-throwdown double bill is Day of the Wolves, that forgotten 1971 thriller — thanks of course to the Roxie Cinema and Elliot Lavine, themselves reunited for the latest installment in “Not Necessarily Noir,” that catch-all occasional series encompassing all things cool and (mostly) celluloid which don’t fit the loose strictures of their long-running actual noir retrospectives. Wolves and Dogs tussle to kick off the two-week schedule this weekend.

Day of the Wolves‘ low profile is somewhat explicable: it was never released theatrically in the US, and for years withheld from legal exhibition due to copyright issues. Still, one marvels how such a flamboyant relic of pure Seventies-ness could have remained under the radar for so long. TV and Vegas comedian Jan Murray is improbably cast as the mastermind who orchestrates the assembly of six career criminals in a secret desert location. All strangers, they’re instructed to call one another only by assigned number, wear identical outfits, and sport full facial hair (some obviously glued-on). Their mission is to “hit a whole town and peel it like an orange” — sealing off a “model community” in the Southwest, emptying every till, then scramming via private plane.

It’s an ingenious plan that counts on the complacent vulnerability of such burgs. In fact, Wellerton’s city council has just demonstrated ideal small-mindedness by firing its police chief (late, SF-born Richard Egan, a second tier 1950s star gone to flab) for the crime of actually enforcing laws on some of its more irresponsible A-list citizens. Thus the population of 7,000 or so is woefully under prepared when they find the power cut off, exit routes blocked, and seven armed desperados in charge.

The early going bears closest resemblance to Reservoir Dogs, and is the most inspired. (Later when the film gets to its prolonged actual climax, it devolves into a more ordinary Western-style shoot-’em-up between the raiders and Egan’s cop-turned vigilante, though there’s a doozy of a final twist.) Writer-director Ferde Grofe Jr., whose career in features sprawled sparsely from the early 60s to the late 80s, demonstrates a real flair for memorable idiosyncrasy, if less so for action. In style and content, Wolves is a perfect time capsule: groovy rock score (with “acid” guitar, bongos, and flute), very wide lapels, and a dune buggy chase. This near-classic B movie will be shown in one mightily color-faded, “pinked-out” 35mm print, an ostensible flaw that plays more like a finishing touch.

“Not Necessarily Noir III” mixes more such rediscoveries with fairly well known cult faves of the last decades, from neo-noirs to Hong Kong action to 70s New Hollywood questing (exceptional 1978 drama Who’ll Stop the Rain with Nick Nolte and Tuesday Weld; the seldom-seen ’71 Cisco Pike with Kris Kristofferson, Gene Hackman, and Warhol superstar Viva). Among its more rarefied titles are two Me Decade Franco-noirs with Jean-Paul Belmondo (who performs some amazing stunts himself in 1971’s The Burglars); 1968’s very disturbing crime thriller Night of the Following Day (wherein white-blond Marlon Brando is the good guy), and a supernatural blaxploitation double bill of very odd, arty 1973 vampire tale Ganja and Hess and the next year’s wacky, tacky voodoo revenge saga Sugar Hill.

Particularly worth checking out is Darker Than Amber, an attempt to launch a James Bond-style series featuring John D. MacDonald’s best-selling Florida sleuth Travis McGee. Unfortunately this 1970 maiden effort flopped, and the film has seldom been seen — especially without cuts — since. Admittedly it has pedestrian TV-style direction from Robert Clouse (who’d hit his sole career peak later with Bruce Lee’s 1973 Enter the Dragon), and the production values are just B-plus. But it’s an ideal vehicle for Rod Taylor, the brawny, wry, relaxed Aussie who should have been a huge star in the 60s and 70s, but despite a couple memorable films (1963’s The Birds, 1960’s The Time Machine) never got the right break. He’s surrounded by a memorable gallery of MacDonald characters, with two body-builder villains (William Smith, Robert Philips) in addition to the frequently shirtless star making this an notably homoerotic entry for the era in a macho action genre.

“NOT NECESSARILY NOIR III”

Oct. 19-31, $6.50-$10

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

www.roxie.com

 

SF Stories: Benjamin Bac Sierra

Andrew Lam
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5
SF Stories: Benjamin Bac Sierra

46TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL 

Puro San Fran: These words have inspired me to somewhere beyond my city and to someone beyond myself. Puro San Fran, I have howled into our smashed streets, into the lush jungles of Okinawa, death deserts of Saudi Arabia, the overly intellectual classrooms at U.C. Berkeley — into barrios worldwide.

Puro San Fran can be literally translated into Pure San Francisco, but what exactly is so pure about this Golden Gated city is the subject for this musing.

As an adolescent homeboy from our Mission district, I shouted Puro San Fran with anger, as a demand to combat. In different evolutions, though, St. Francis blessed me with different powers that forced me to confront profound paradoxes, within myself and my home.

Puro San Fran is more than a battle-cry; it is a meditation, a mantra that has soothed me and granted me an identity that has fueled my consciousness. I like to pride myself as a Missionero and Cortlandero before gentrification of those gritty hoods, but it is idealistic impurity to tell the tale that the Mission district is all I knew. I liked to claim those territories as if I, we, owned those streets, but those streets were only half my story.

A veteran Muni bus rider by age 11, I would graffiti tag my name and the name of our break dance crew all over every neighborhood — the Haight, Noe Valley, Soma (back when all that existed there were dull warehouses), the Sunset, Excelsior, etc. At 14 years old, we, brown skinned, would blow white angel-dust smoke halos into San Francisco’s spitting seashore at Ocean Beach. During the crack-era 1980s, we would drink and fight at rat-infested Union Square, a home for black-bearded bums who we would share our Mad-Dog 20/20 wine with. Parading our poverty on 30th street after our many 49ers Superbowl victories, we proclaimed the streets as ours, not knowing or understanding that the actual tar and cement would be “rehabilitated” (gentrified) before we would be, so that now almost all of my former San Franeros have vanished outside its borders.

Except for very brief stints in backyard cities, I did not truly explore outside of San Francisco until I was seventeen and joined the Marine Corps. Before then, I had never even heard of other major Bay Area cities called Santa Rosa, Richmond, Berkeley, or Menlo Park. My world, my life was Puro San Fran, but it was that spirit that also charged me forward, so that now I have trumpeted our unique city everywhere I have traveled. With San Fran spirit, I thrust myself into becoming a student, a writer, a professor, a father, a sinner, and a fuller human being.

San Francisco is changing, as it has always been changing, but we are at our roots Native American hippie Missionary 49er Giant locos. Thanks to our counterculture tradition, we believe in peace and diversity as an essence, yet we contradict ourselves by also being hedonistic kings and queens who wear the golden crown of capitalism on the West Coast. What goes on in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what goes on here in San Fran becomes a permanent tattoo on our souls, and we like to believe we have them, that stuff of souls. We live in the moment trusting it is forever. Go to AT&T Park during the Giants playoffs; you will feel the forever, and you will fall in love with it. Puro San Fran, therefore, is a hopeless romantic nostalgia for something that never really existed but that always is possible. With that purity, that hopeless possibility, that profound paradox, I write and represent us all. Con Safos.

Benjamin Bac Siera is a San Francisco City College English composition and literature professor and author of Barrio Bushido, an ode to Mission District vato locos.

SF Stories: John Ross

Andrew Lam
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0
SF Stories: John Ross

46TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL Coming out of the underground

On the BART escalator,

The Mission sky

Is washed by Autumn,

The old men and their garbage bags

Are clustered in the battered plaza

We once named for Cesar Augusto Sandino.

Behind me down below

In the throat of the Earth

A rough bracero sings

Of his comings and goings

In a voice as ronco y dulce

As the mountains of Michoacan and Jalisco

For the white zombies

Careening downtown

To the dot coms.

They are trying to kick us

Out of here

Again

They are trying to drain

This neighborhood of color

Of color

Again.

This time we are not moving on.

We are going to stick to this barrio

Like the posters so fiercely pasted

To the walls of La Mision With iron glue

That they will have to take them down

Brick by brick

To make us go away

And even then our ghosts

Will come home

And turn those bricks

Into weapons

And take back our streets

Brick by brick

And song by song

Ronco y dulce

As Jalisco and Michaocan

Managua, Manila, Ramallah Pine Ridge, Vietnam, and Africa.

As my compa QR say

We’re here now motherfuckers

Tell the Klan and the Nazis

And the Real Estate vampires

To catch the next BART out of here

For Hell.

John Ross (1938-2011) was a street poet, shit disturber, author, and for some 20 years, the Bay Guardian’s Mexico City correspondent

SF Stories: Tiny

Andrew Lam
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3
SF Stories: Tiny

46TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL I have a Vision..(Too!)

of poor people-led revolutions and clan mothers wit solutions including the many colored, many spirited, humble people who still remain in San Francisco even though we are systematically incarcerated, profiled, shot or just hated Used by akkkademic institutions, Nonprofiteering, complex over-funded government collusions — From gang ijunctions to sit-lie laws —

Arresting poor folks of color for no just cause

From Ambassador security guards to Stop ‘ n’ Frisk-

using code words like”cleaning up streets”

so frisko is only for the white ‘ n’ Rich The Afrikan population Out-migration caused by Negro Removal, Redlining, Re-Devil-opment and Lennar displacement La Raza en la mission replaced, displaced by condominiums and Eastern Neighborhood Plans, making room for wheatgrass juice and gourmet coffe stands-

And then let’s go back to the Original removal — !st Peoples of the Ohlone Nation — rarely remembered, considered, spoken about or even named..

Caring for Pachamama, mother Earth in a good way, by the teachings of our ancestors every day

So where does this leave us folx who refuse to be cleaned out, incarcerated, profiled or Wheat-grasserated…

We still here, aqui estamos y no nos vamos —

You can’t Frisk, me, Injunct me or incarcerate me cuz let me be clear.

I am staying in my hood, on my corner

and gonna stay seated in my newly gentrifuked park

.. and to Google buses, condominium, devil-opers and un-conscous new-comers,

we will be a thorn in your side for life and up-end your corporate, money-driven hustle

with our feet, our love, our actions …and our ancestors at our side…

“Where we supposed to go, us po’ folks born here, raised here?” said Vietnam vet, disabled, poverty skola and panhandler reporter at POOR magazine, Papa Bear, arrested three times in one day under Sit-lie. “Going to Hell,” thats my vision (of the city) — when they killed the black community — the soul of this city was gone,” said Tony Robles, PNN co-editor, poet, author and organizer and revolutionary son of San Francisco natives of Manilatown. “I don’t care if I’m the last Mexican in the Mission,” said Sandra Sez, indigenous warrior mama and organizer born and raised in the Mission District.

I was born in the back seat of a car, dealt with houselessness and criminalization since I was 11. Ended up in the Bay Area when I was 14. Can’t say San Francisco is my town. But I have had the blessing of meeting and being in family with some of the most powerful revolutionaries from both sides of this beautiful bay. From the I-Hotel resistance to Mission Anti-displacement Coalition to HOMIES to PODER, from The Bay View Newspaper, Idriss Stelley Foundation to the Coalition on Homelessness. Me and my houseless mama along with other landless revolutionaries launched revolutionary projects, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE, PeopleSkool, the Po Poets/Poetas POBRE’s , the welfareQUEENs and Theatre of the POOR, to name a few.

I have also been houseless, incarcerated, evicted, profiled, poverty-pimped, gentriFUKed and welfare deformed in the Bay. I have seen beauty and felt resistance in this place in ways I don’t believe would have been possible anywhere else. And yet now it seems like the struggle is just to remain.

Should one fight to stay in a party that no longer includes most of your friends? Neighborhoods filled with people you don’t know and don’t want to know. Schools stripped of their color and cultures. Corporate streets filled with shiney white buses for people who can’t put their deliecate feet on a public bus. Bike lanes filled with $3,000 bicycles and coffee shops that only sell $4 cups of coffee and $3 vegan donuts.

My humble vision for SF includes reparations for black peoples in the Bay View, giving back stolen vacant land to Original Peoples, makng the more than 30,000 empty units in San Francisco available for poor, houseless, and foreclosed on peoples to live in. For landlords to rent at least one apartment per building to families in poverty at reduced or no rent, for doctors and dentists to see at least three patients per practice for a sliding scale starting at $0 — and for people to not question “where their money is going” when they give 50 cents to a panhandler/street newspaper vendor while never questioning where their tax dollars go to politricksters and CEOs of corporations. For the SFPD to arrest, profile, and harass drunken white people who spill out of Bay to Breakers and Golden Gate Park concerts with the same voracity that they do poor youth of color — cause then maybe it would actually have to stop.

And finally for all racist, classist laws that target us poor folks, like sit-lie, gang injunctions and stop and frisk be repealed for their flagrant and disgusting unconstitutionality so that public space will remain truly public and people might truly be free.

Tiny, aka Lisa Gray-Garcia, is a founder of POOR Magazine.

Heads Up: 8 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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As the seasons change – whatever casual seasonal changes we get here in the Bay – the interminable cycle of music, of bands, of life, spins on. Men of a certain age keep playing (Bob Dylan at the Bill Graham, Iron Lung at the Knockout), local legends fall apart (Uzi Rash is splitting up) and newer sounds enter our consciousness: Coo Coo Birds, Allah-Las. Don’t grow too maudlin, there’s always another block party around the corner (Clarion Alley Block Party).

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

Bob Dylan
“What does one need to know in order to decide whether or not to go to one of the upcoming Bay Area Bob Dylan concerts? Well, what can one say about the legendary singer-songwriter that has left an indelible mark on the fabric of American culture for 50 years now — the man who earlier this year was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to this country via his more than 600 songs, including “The Times They Are A Changin’” and “Blowin’ In The Wind?” All you need to know is that Dylan is in town, there are still tickets available, and you will never forgive yourself if you miss the opportunity to see this one of a kind icon.” — Sean McCourt
With Mark Knopfler.
Wed/17-Thu/18, 7:30pm, $59.50-$125
Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
99 Grove St., SF
www.apeconcerts.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnY18LRYRhQ

Iron Lung
Iron Lung is minimalist – just two members epically battling it out in rapid, growling powerviolence jams that usually last around two minutes or less. The two musicians, Jensen Ward and Jon Kortland, have been doing the Iron Lung beat-down since ’99 and briefly lived in Oakland during that time. Welcome their return this week.
With the Process, Effluxus, Hunting Party
Thu/18, 9:30pm, $8
Knockout
3223 Mission, SF
(415) 550-6994
www.theknockoutsf.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vD_59dDfH8

Coo Coo Birds
San Francisco rock’n’rollers Coo Coo Birds – self-described “natural enem[ies] to human mothers and boyfriends” – put out a tambourine-shaken party rock album this summer with song titles like “Sake Baby,” “Come into My Cave” and “I’ve Got a Feeling,” the latter of which includes a saxophone track by Steve McKay of the Stooges, just so you know what you’re dealing with here.
With Electric Shepherd, Electric Magpie
Fri/19, 9pm, $7
Thee Parkside
1600 17th St., Sf
(415) 252-1330
www.theeparkside.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT6srRZcEiE

Nick Waterhouse and Allah-Lahs
Both great artists in their respective fields, both retro-tinged modern music makers, LA via SF solo crooner Nick Waterhouse and la-la-land psychedelic surf rockers Allah-Las channel everyone from Frank Sinatra to the Zombies, respectively. This joint tour is a match made in rock‘n’roll heaven.
Sat/20, 9pm, $18
Bimbo’s
1025 Columbus, SF
(415) 474-0365
www.bimbos365.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrrA9Lb3sMs

SF Reggae Festival
Open your mind and process the thought that there is reggae of all distinctions, as with any loosely organized genre. The free, second annual SF Reggae Festival will includes live music by Ancestree, Ceasar Myles, Creation, and a whole lot of DJs. Along with performances, there will be Jamaican food, vendors, and perusable arts and crafts stations. Here’s hoping it’s sunny.
Sat/10, noon-6pm, free
Fillmore at O’Farrell, SF
www.sfreggaefest.com

Clarion Alley Block Party
If you’ve never been to the Clarion Alley Block Party, then you’re not yet a true San Franciscan. That’s an exaggeration, but it seems like a true right of passage for SF folk. The ever-evolving walls will boast new, brightly saturated murals, and in between them, a robust showcase of local musical talent on two stages: Future Twin, Moira Scar, Apogee Sound Club, Brass Liberation Orchestra, Afrolicious, Grandma’s Boyfriend, and more. Who doesn’t love an alley party?
Sat/20, parade at noon (led by Brass Liberation Orchestra), noon-8:30pm
Clarion Alley Mural Project
Between 17th and 18th Streets, Mission and Valencia, SF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVSQlBu8NUs

Wax Idols
“Wax Idols’ badass frontperson Heather Fedewa (who goes by the moniker “Hether Fortune”) has dubbed her refreshingly unique garage pop-punk-death rock genre “morbid classics” and cites Christian Death as a prominent artistic influence. Fortune’s songs focus on morbidity, love, and defiance, and the band’s sound oscillates between the sunny, upbeat punk of “Gold Sneakers” and the dark and raw introspection of “The Last Drop.” — Mia Sullivan
With Wymond Miles, Evil Eyes
Sat/20, 8pm, $10
Brick and Mortar
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 800-8782
www.brickandmortarmusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPc2EnJSi1g

Uzi Rash
It’s the end of an era. Bay Area supergroup Uzi Rash is soon calling it quits. And, with the leaves dropping from a few city park trees and the chillier winds howling in, this will be the last outdoor Indie Mart of 2012. Celebrate with both, and while you’re at it, shop for vintage and DIY treasures, imbibe, nosh Chairman Bao and All Good Pizza street food, and take in the sounds of White Mystery, SF Rock Project (with surprise guests), Greg Ashley and Cracked Ice (featuring Brian Glaze from Brian Jonestown Massacre)
Sun/21, noon, $3 donation
Thee Parkside
1600 17th St., SF
(415) 252-1330
www.indie-mart.com

Serendipity, with saba

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS The number of severed duck heads in my compost bucket currently stands at eight, but I am open to more. Did anyone else accidentally go to Louisiana and shoot some ducks, bring them back, put them in the fridge, and then not have time to deal with them?

If so, I’m here for you. If you want, I’ll even share the resultant gumbo. Just ask the de la Cooters.

A lot of people don’t like to eat ducks. Especially wild ‘uns, which, in comparison to their domesticational counterparts, tend toward tough and gamey. That’s why you have to gumbo them.

Gumbo, by virtue of being gumbo, is good. Even health-food gumbo, like mine. I used okra and file instead of a roux, Hedgehog being essentially gluten free. I even used chicken-instead-of-pork andouille. From Trader Joe’s! And it was super spicy and delicious, so kudos to them.

Meanwhile, as much as I hate to dis the little guy: boo-hiss to RoliRoti for selling me an inedible half of a chicken yesterday at the Mission Market. What the? Everyone raves about this place, but I’ve had better chickens for half the price at the Safeway Deli. This poor li’l big bird was so dry, even the dark meat, we had to take it home and shred it into our now-giant gumbo.

 

CHEAP SPORTS

by Hedgehog

Months ago we bought $2 tickets for the A’s final regular season game, guessing it would be an important one. It turned out to be the importantest: not only was it a three-game sweep of the Rangers and a dramatic come-from-behinder, it also left the A’s in sole possession of first place in the AL West for the first and only time all season. Fortunately, it was the only day that first-place matters.

My orthopedist had declared my wrist re-unbroken mere days before that game, which was excellent timing on her part because I can’t even count how many high fives I gave to strangers on our way out of the Coliseum. And this may surprise you but some of the fans had impaired aim, so that the high fives were more like flunges and parries, but with wrists instead of foils. So a big Cheap Sports shout-out to my left radius, for getting its shit together in time for the big game.

Which doesn’t remind me: We made a five-minute movie last weekend. It was a lot of fun! So much so that another one or more will be in the can by the time you read this. We have a club! For making movies! A movie-making club! We are flush with writers and directors but if anyone wants to act, direct the photography, light, picture edit, or fund our endeavors, hit up the Farmer’s email addy above.

To see why we need you, “Finding Dee Dee” is now showing on a YouTube or Vimeo near you.

CHEAP EATS continued

Yeah, well, if Academy Awards were given for catering, I reckon I’d be working on my acceptance speech now. Instead of this.

But I do have a new favorite restaurant. It’s Tokyo Teriyaki, in Daly City, and we wound up there by accident with my Secret Agent Lady, who picked us up from the airport after last week’s column.

At rush hour! So 101 was bad, so we took 280, which was bad, but we were hungry anyway so we aimed ourselves toward Tani’s Kitchen. Which had a line with a 40-minute wait, it’s so cute in there. So we aimed ourselves toward Tokyo Teriyaki.

Which doesn’t sound as good as Tani’s Kitchen, and was only luke-warmly recommended by one of our fellow line-standers, but two-thirds of us were starving on East Coast time, so away we whisked.

Wow. If they’re waiting 40 minutes to eat at Tani’s, and the half-empty joint around the corner is this good … Wow. Daly City is my new favorite city.

Oshitashi made with napa cabbage instead of spinach: fantastic.

Seafood sunomono, which is a cucumber salad with raw shrimp, crab, and octopus: fantastic.

Tokyo Teriyaki is not expensive, precious, or popular; just friendly, great Japanese food, including sushi.

Best. Saba. Ever. I had to order it again, it was so dang good.

TOKYO TERIYAKI

Mon-Sat 11am-2pm; Mon-Thu 4:30-9:30pm; Fri 4:30-10pm; Sat 4-10pm; Sun 4-9pm

25 Southgate Ave., Daly City

(650) 755-3478

AE,D,MC,V

Beer and wine

 

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