Queer

Stage listings

David Talbot
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0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Cindy Goldfield & Scrumbly Koldewyn in Cowardly Things New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctsf.org. $20-28. Previews Thurs/8, 8pm. Opens Fri/9, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 31. Cindy Goldfield and Scrumbly Koldewyn in a tribute to Noel Coward.

Comedy Ballet The Garage, 975 Howard; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Opens Fri/9, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm, Sun, 3pm. Through July 18. Dark Porch Theatre presents an outlandish and unusual dance and theater hybrid.

Dead Certain Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa; (866) 811-4111. $12-28. Previews Thurs/8-Fri/9, 8pm. Opens Sat/10, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through August 14. Expression Productions presents a psychological thriller by Marcus Lloyd.

Foresight Fort Mason Southside Theater, Building D; www.fortmason.org. $22-27. Opens Fri/9, 8pm. RunsFri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 8pm. Through July 18. Easily Distracted Theatre presents a new play by Bay Area filmmaker Ruben Grijalva.

Gilligan’s Island: Live on Stage! The Garage, 975 Howard; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-20. Opens Sun/11 8pm. Runs Sun, 8pm. Through August 29. Moore Theatre and SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts brings the TV show to the stage, lovey.

The 91 Owl African American Arts Cultural Complex, 762 Fulton; 574-8908, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-25. Previews Thurs/8, 8pm. Opens Fri/9 8pm. Runs nightly 8pm. Through July 22. A production of Bernard Norris’s play about the life of a San Francisco bus stop.

Piaf: Love Conquers All Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-36. Previews Wed/7-Thurs/8, 8pm. Opens Fri/9 8pm. Runs Tues-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm. Through August 7. Tone Poet Productions brings a portrait of Edith Piaf to the stage.

"San Francisco Olympians Festival" Exist Stage Left, 156 Eddy; www.sfolympians.com $10.

BAY AREA

Mrs. Warren’s Profession Bruns Ampitheatre, 100 California Theatre Shakespeare Way, Orinda; (510) 548-9666, www.calshakes.org. $34-70. California Shakespeare Theater presents George Bernard Shaw’s classic morality play.


ongoing

Abigail: The Salem Witch Trials Temple SF, 540 Howard; www.templesf.com. $10. Thurs/8, 29, Aug 5, 12, 19, 26, 9pm. Through Aug 26. Buzz Productions, with Skycastle Music and Lunar Eclipse Records, presents an original rock opera based on the Salem witch trials.

Beijing, California Thick House Theater, 1695 18th St; www.asianamericantheater.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through July 17. Asian American Theater Company presents a new play by Paul Heller set in the year 2050, when China invades America.

*Blackbird: Honoring a Century of Pansy Divas Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission; 786-9325, www.evezen.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/10. The intimate Blackbird Funeral Parlour Speakeasy is somber-toned and deceptively hushed, complete with period furnishings, a see-through dressing room, softly flickering altar, and obligatory piano. Only a few moments into Seth Eisen’s exceptional one-man cabaret, however, and the place is alive and kicking: doleful aspects of the décor making ample room for a sly, vigorous, soulful performer and a completely unexpected journey through some vibrant underground queer history (backed by fellow Circo Zero alum Sean Feit’s sharp musical direction and breezy accompaniment, and Alanna Simone’s gently humorous and haunting video pieces). Your guide is 100-year-old Jean Marlin, author of the notorious 1930s Pansy Craze, 75 years dead and looking fabulous in tails, bold green cravat, dapper purple hankie and a topping of regal black plumage (costumer Jack Davis demonstrates a genius throughout for turning a shoestring budget into a G-string–supported extravaganza). A multifaceted performer with quick tongue, nimble steps, and hearty voice (giving life to an assortment of extraordinary songs), Eisen uses drag, dance, puppetry, and performance art techniques to give flight to worthy exotic blackbirds known and forgotten—drag queen Zen priest Tommy Issan Dorsey; sexually ambiguous Danny Kaye; Brazil’s inimitable Ney Matogrosso; the definitely outré Klaus Nomi; and disco treasure Sylvester, whose live rendition of the Beatles’ "Blackbird" at SF’s War Memorial Opera House is one of several standout moments in this rollicking and poignant act of resurrection, insurrection, and homage. (Avila)

"Durang Me!" Next Stage, 1620 Gough; 1-800-838-3006, www.custommade.org. $10-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/10. Christopher Durang’s The Actor’s Nightmare could just as easily be called The Accountant’s Nightmare, as befuddled Everyman and presumed non-actor George Spelvin (Eric O’ Kelly) attempts to navigate his way out of a confused rendition of Noel Coward’s "Private Lives" dressed as Prince Hamlet and menaced by a trashcan-bearing Beckett-arian (AJ Davenport). This traditional companion piece to Durang’s Catholic School send-up Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You references a Catholic boyhood several times, but it is the anxiety of the present moment that prevails, as the stage clears, and Spelvin is chased into a corner by an unforgiving spotlight to deliver his frantic last-ditch attempt at a soliloquy: his ABC’s. The titular Sister Mary Ignatius (AJ Davenport), by turns arctic and expansive, attempts to explain all, while periodically trotting out her star pupil Thomas (Cole Cloud) to recite catechism and spell eck-u-men-ickle for cookies. Davenport plays the pedantic side of Sister Mary with humorous vigor, but when a group of her former students drop by "to embarrass her" she doesn’t quite pull off embodying the ogress of their now-adult nightmares. Of her former students, it is probably Aloysius Benheim (Eric O’Kelly) who comes across as the most damaged by her tyranny, and not coincidentally, suffers the piece’s greatest humiliation. (Nicole Gluckstern)

How the Other Half Loves Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason; (800) 838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $35, Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 31. In Alan Ayckbourn’s 1971 comedy, a night of infidelity propels two colliding couples into menacing a third, a pair of innocents unwittingly drawn into the whole affair as alibis. The collisions are made all the more kinetic by the fact that Ayckbourn cheekily drops the two principal couples into overlapping living rooms, where they continually brush by each other in ironic obliviousness. At the outset of this droll two-act, Fiona Foster (a smart, cucumber-cool Sylvia Kratins) has just slept with Bob Phillips (a brilliantly sourpussed James Darbyshire), junior colleague of her husband Frank (Jeff Garrett, exuding the animated splendor of the full-on English twit), on the night of the couple’s wedding anniversary (pure coincidence for the forgetful, loveless Fiona). In loose coordination with lover Bob, Fiona explains her late night absence with reference to a pair of vague acquaintances, the Featherstones (Jocelyn Stringer and Adam D. Simpson). Bob does the same with Teresa (a spunky Corinne Proctor), his homebound wife and a new, deeply disgruntled young mother. Naturally, back-to-back dinner parties with said alibis ensue, much to the horror and chagrin of the adulterers. Off Broadway West Theatre Company’s production, smoothly helmed by Richard Harder, makes the most of the complex staging as both time and space collapse over intersecting dining tables. If the play is slow to catch fire, it reaches a nice sustained peak that proves worth the going. Shaky accents from Garrett and especially Simpson can distract at times, but Harder’s cast is generally solid and engaging, with particularly enjoyable work from Darbyshire and Proctor as the volatile younger Phillips with their crass bickering, canned erotic energy, and barely countenanced off-stage baby. (Avila)

The New Century New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun/11, 2pm. Through Sun/11. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Paul Rudnick’s bill of short comedies.

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

Posibilidad, or Death of the Worker Dolores Park and other sites; 285-1717, www.sfmt.org. Free. Sat-Sun, 2pm; also Sept 6, 2pm; Sept 17, 8pm. The San Francisco Mime Troupe opens its 51st season with a modern song and tango about politics in the workplace.

Reading My Dad’s Porn and French Kissing the Dog The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 17. The title of San Francisco writer-performer Cherry Zonkowski’s confessional solo show gives only a little away—a passing detail from the Nordic diversions of a spirited army brat and daughter of an alcoholic father—but the rest of the narrative leaves even less to the imagination. An account of Zonkowski’s initiation into the sex party and BDSM scene, Reading My Dad’s Porn bounces gleefully between comically graphic depictions of sweaty, writhing Bay Area meet-and-greets and a childhood and young adulthood buried in family dysfunction, a loveless marriage, and the grueling teaching load of a recent English PhD. Ultimately, it’s the story of a woman finding her own identity and community, and if the outlines sound familiar they also feel that way. The straightforward plot—peppered with humorous details and asides (as well as the odd song, accompanied by accordionist Salane Schultz, alternating nights with Aaron Seeman)—lacks both urgency and characters of much complexity. The story’s patina of outré sex, meanwhile, is far from revelatory and too superficial and jokey to offer much dramatic heft. Nevertheless, the show, developed with director David Ford, draws a limited appeal from the force of Zonkowski’s extroverted personality, whose orientation sexual and otherwise skews toward fun—although her more aggressive attempts to corral the audience into participating (mainly vocally) in the show’s narrative high jinx may put some off even more than the fisting by the snack table. (Avila)

What Mama Said About Down There Our Little Theater, 287 Ellis; 820-3250, www.theatrebayarea.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through August 28. Writer-performer-activist Sia Amma presents this largely political, a bit clinical, inherently sexual, and utterly unforgettable performance piece.

Young Frankenstein Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor; 551-2000, www.shnsf.com. $30-99. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm, also Tues/13, July 20, 8pm; Wed/7, July 24, 21, 2 and 8pm. Through July 25.

For all its outlandish showmanship, Mel Brooks’s other movie-turned-musical is not quite as grand a beast as The Producers . Still, the adventures of Victor Frankenstein’s reputation-conscious grandson, Frederick Frankenstein—played with exceeding charm and surgeon-like skill by major cut-up Roger Bart, originator of the role on Broadway—remains a monster of a show, in more ways than one. The rapid-fire repartee, for starters, is scarily deft, the comic timing among a first-rate cast all but flawless (even when milking a line shamelessly), the fancy footwork (choreographed by director Susan Stroman) pretty fancy, and the mise en scène holds some attractive surprises as well. At the same time, and despite the fecund humor revolving around questions of size and virility, the show’s actual two-and-a-half-hour length proves a bit wearying, especially as many of the best jokes (though by no means all) are the much-loved and universally much-repeated gags from the film. Moreover, Brooks’s songs, while very able, rarely rise to memorable and sometimes feel perfunctory or a bit busy. One of the glorious exceptions is the blind hermit scene (played brilliantly by Brad Oscar), which combines the hilariously plaintive song "Please Send Me Someone" with a lovingly faithful rendition of the original spoof for a sequence that literally smokes. (Avila)


BAY AREA

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. July 24, 31, 8pm; July 18, 25, Aug 1, 7pm; Fri/9, 16, 9pm. Through August 1. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

Left of Oz Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-50. Fri-Sat, 8pm, Sun, 7pm. Through July 18. Stephanie’s Playhouse presents a lez-queer musical comedy following the out west adventures of Dorothy.

Les Liasons Dangereuses Redwood Ampitheatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; (415) 251-1027, www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 7:30pm; also Wed/7, 7:30pm. Through Sat/10. Porchlight Theatre Company presents a production of Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of the 1782 novel.

Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/9, 7pm; Sun/11, 2pm. Through July 11. Ann Randolph’s comic solo show about an irreverent woman’s trip back to her childhood home in Ohio.

Shaker Chair Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear Avenue, Mtn View; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (also Sat/10, 2pm). Through July 11. Pear Avenue Theatre presents Adam Bock’s play about a middle-aged widow who applies Shaker philosophy to her lifestyle.

Speech & Debate Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $34-55. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm, 7pm; Tues, 7pm. Through July 18. Aurora Theatre closes its 18th season with Stephen Karam’s comedy about three teen misfits connected to a small town sex scandal.


PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Theatre Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, B350 Fort Mason; 474-6776, www.improv.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through July 31. Bay Area Theatresports presents an evening of theater and comedy.
The Bowls Project: Secrets of the Apocalyptic Intimate Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Sculpture Court, 701 Mission; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Tues/6, 6-8pm, free. Through August 22. Charming Hostess presents a series of performances in conjunction with an interactive sound sculpture.
Liz Grant Variety Pack Comedy Show Purple Onion, 140 Columbus; 200-8781, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri, 4:30pm. Through Sept 3. $10. A changing lineup of stand up comedy.
"San Francisco Olympians Festival" Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy; www.sfolympians.com Fri/9-Sat/10, 8pm, $10. A series of one=act perfomances by No Nude Men Productions.

Music listings

David Talbot
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Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 7

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

AB and the Sea, What Laura Says, DJ Ted Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $5.

Beehive Spirit, Satellite Crush, Happy Talk Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Fol Chen, Jhameel Bottom of the Hill. 9pm. $12.

Kajillion, Amanda’s X, Real Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Maine, This Century Slim’s. 7pm, $18.

MofoParty Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16.

Project Pitchfork, Ayria, Break Up DNA Lounge. 8pm, $20.

*Shannon and the Clams, Outdoorsmen, Tropical Sleep Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THURSDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

B Stars, Beautiful Train Wrecks, Maurice Tani Band Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Beth Custer Ensemble, Dina Maccabee Band, Allison Lovejoy’s Cabaret Nouveau Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Big Billy Daddy Cade Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16. BB King tribute.

“The Bowls Project: Secrets of the Apocalyptic Intimate” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Sculpture Court, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 987-2787, www.ybca.org. 6pm, free with gallery admission ($5-7). Charming Hostess with special musical guests.

Deerhoof, Donkeys, Southeast Engine Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $15.

Downer Party Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $5. With DJs Mother Barry, Mattfiesta, Scissorwolf, and DJ Swords.

Mob Figaz featuring the Jacka and Husalah, Strong Arm Steady Slim’s. 9pm, $21.

Unter Noll, Cyanotic, Cynical Mass DNA Lounge. 9pm, $11.

Wisecracker, Jokes for Feelings, Spawn Atomic Kimo’s. 9pm.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

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

Kentucky Twisters Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-7. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afro-tropical, samba, and funk.

BASE Vessel. 9:30pm, $10. With DJs Chris Liebing and Alland Byallo spinning tech house.

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

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

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

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

Gymnasium Matador, 10 Sixth St, SF; (415) 863-4629. 9pm, free. With DJ Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, hip hop, and disco.

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

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

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

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

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

Nacht Musik Knockout. 10:30pm, $5. Dark, minimal, and electronic with DJs Omar, Josh, and Justin.

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

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

Solid Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, free. With DJs Daddy Rolo and Tesfa spinning roots, reggae, dancehall, soca, and mashups.

FRIDAY 9

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Angels of Vice, Stereo Freakout, Farallon, Ratchet Great American Music Hall. 7:30pm, $15.

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

Guy Davis and the High Flying Rockets Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

*Dwarves, Tater Famine, Thee Merry Widows Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10. Acoustic performances.

Erasure-Esque, Sing Blue Silver Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Ettrick, Sean, Peji/Kunin, Pink Canoes Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Flexx Bronco, Neon Nights, Bite, Karma Bomb Kimo’s. 9pm, $7.

El Guincho, Still Flyin’, Ghosts on Tape Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $15.

Hi-Rhythm Hustlers Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.thehirhythmhustlers.com. 9:30pm, $15.

Jrod Indigo with Kat 010 Coda. 10pm, $10.

*Magic Bullets, Dreamdate, Wax Idols Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Music for Animals, Foreign Resort, Hundred Days Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $12.

Skinlab, Attitude Adjustment, A Thousand Kingdoms, Un-ID Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Water and Bodies, Beta State, Knife Prty, Citabria Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

DANCE CLUBS

Bang the Box 222 Hyde. 9pm. With DJ Joakim spinning electronic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Know Your History Som. 9pm, $15. With DJs 45 King, Shortkut, Marky, and A-Ron spinning hip hop.

Lucky Road DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10. Gypsy punk dance party with Sister Kate, Rose Harden, MWE Band, and more.

Makeout Sessions Club Six. 9pm, $10. With DJs Juan Basshead, La Cuchina Som Sistema, Blackheart, Ultraviolet, and Rob Cannon spinning dubstep.

Pantheon 103 Harriet, 103 Harriet, SF; (415) 431-1200. 9pm, $25. A night of Gods and Goddesses featuring DJs Elite Force, Soul of Man, Slyde, Myagi, and more spinning divine wonders to raise money for the Burning Man Temple 2010.

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

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

Strictly Video 111 Minna. 9pm, $10. With VDJs Shortkut, Swift Rock, GoldenChyld, and Satva spinning rap, 80s, R&B, and Dancehall.

Treat Em Right Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop and funk with DJ Vinnie Esparza and guests.

Tsunami Supperclub. With the Coda tag team and DJs fLOORCRAFt, Johnnie Schiffer, FurSure, and more spinning electronic and progressive dance.

SATURDAY 10

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Magic Kids, Pearl Harbor Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $15.

Au Revoir Simone, Social Studies, Alexa Wilding Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.

Black Nite Crash, Sky Parade, These Hills of Gold, Silent Pictures Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Carbon Leaf Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $16.

Dm Stith, Inlets, Silje Nas Hemlock Tavern. 5pm, $7.

Goldenhearts, Soft White Sixties, Happy Idiot Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

James Harman Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Paul McCartney AT&T Park, 24 Willie Mayes Pk, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 7:30pm, $49.50-250.

Jordin Sparks, Ashlyne Huff, Days of Difference Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $28.

Triple Cobra, Butlers, Hewhocannotbenamed, DJ Omar Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $12.

21st Century, Adam Farone, Picture Me Broken, Endings for Anastasia, Guns Fall Silent Slim’s. 7:30pm, $15.

Victim Nation Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

“Meridian Music: Composers in Performance” Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; (415) 398-7229, www.meridiangallery.org. 7:30pm, $5-10. With Frank Gratkowski’s Artikulationen (articulations).

“Re-Sonic in the Illuminated Forest” Lab, 2948 16th St, SF; (415) 320-6685. 8pm, $10-15. Performances and talks by Alyce Santoro, Joshua Churchill, and Thomas Carnacki.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Julio Bravo y Orquesta Salsabor The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm, free.

Sandy Cressman and Homenagem Brasileira Coda. 7pm, $10.

Kara Lara Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Theater, 2868 Mission, SF; (415) 821-1155. 7pm; free, donations encouraged. A benefit for Artists in Resistencia.

“Portraits” City Art Gallery, 828 Valencia, SF; (415) 970-9900. 7pm, free. A release party for Off the Air Production’s new album featuring 32 songwriters.

Elio Reve y Su Charangon Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $30.

SF Hootenanny Night Café International, 508 Haight, SF; (415) 552-7390. 7pm, free. With the Courtney Janes, Bhi Bhiman, Rick DiDia, and Aireene Espiritu.

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

“Song-Along: A Songwriters Showcase” Bazaar Café, 5927 Californa, SF; (415) 831-5620. 7pm, free. With Pi Jacobs, Thea Hopkins, and Karyna Cruz.

Allen Thompson Plough and Stars. 8pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

BADNB Club Six. 9pm, $10. With DJs 2 Cents, Truth, Alphonic, Canadub, and Audio Angel spinning drum and bass.

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

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $7. Queer dance party for homos and friends with DJ Nuxx and Zax.

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

Electricity Knockout. 10pm, $4. A decade of 80s with DJs Omar, Deadbeat, and Yule Be Sorry.

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

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

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

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

Scotty Boy Vessel. 9:30pm, $20. Spinning mash ups.

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

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

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pn, $5-10. Electro-cumbia DJs.

SUNDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“Battle of the Bands” DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With My Addiction, Lucabrazzi, Kavarzee, and more.

Birds and Batteries, Grand Hallway, That Moanin’ Dove Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $12.

Colossal Yes, Lazarus, Donovan Quinn and Zachary Cale Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Ferocious Few, Fake Your Own Death, Murder of Lilies, Death Valley High Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $10.

Austin Lucas, Cory Branan Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

Nickle Slots Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Sea Dramas, Guy Sebastian Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

Streetlight Manifesto, Supervillains, Wonder Years, Dan Potthast Slim’s. 7:30pm, $16.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTY

Gente do Samba The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm, free.

Gipsy Kings Fillmore. 8pm, $85.

Jewish Music Festival Party Yerba Buena Gardens, 750 Howard, SF; (415) 820-3550. Noon, free.

Devon McClive Amnesia. 6:30pm, free.

Elio Reve y Su Charangon Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-30.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MONDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Farmer Dave Scher, Seventeen Evergreen Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

*Li’l Kim Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; (415) 394-1189, www.therrazzroom.com. 8pm, $47.50-75.

Miggs, Silver Griffin Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Moka Only and Factor, Ceschi, Open Mike Eagle, Kirby Dominant, Toast Elbo Room. 9pm, $8.

Tool Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 8pm, $59.50.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

Musik for Your Teeth Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Soul cookin’ happy hour tunes with DJ Antonino Musco.

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

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

TUESDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Andrew Belle, Ernie Halter, Tony Lucca Hotel Utah. 8pm, $12.

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Halsted, Dave Smallen Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Hanalei, James Leste, Rob Carter and Ruben Diaz Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Mynabirds, Honeycomb Rickshaw Stop. 6pm, $10.

Maren Parusel, Fight or Flight Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

Prize Hog, Black Skies, Flood Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJ Big Dwayne and DJ What’s His Fuck.

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

Fromagique Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. Live music and tawdry burlesque with Bombshell Betty.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

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

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

Lips, Inc.

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Lips, Inc.

SUPER EGO Pride was huge and mostly cute, although I was bummed out by all the trash. (The litter, I mean.) I say next year everyone who goes has to prove their queer credentials by designing dazzling outfits recycled from castoff compostable cups, clove butts, loose boa feathers, meat-on-a-stick sticks, leftover rainbow Smirnoff wristbands, and broken drag newbie heels.

Stand and wobble with me, sustainable sisters of the night!

Still, it was nice to see Pride acknowledge the tastes of its changing demographic with an expanded emphasis on Latin music, soul, and hip-hop at the dance stages. That replaced classic diva house and disco with an alternative musical history of Pride, and it was a lovely change. This year, it fell to the radical faeries of the Freedom Village to preserve that certain old-school strain of gay celebration with rare disco tunes, historical shrines (walking through the rest of the celebration, you’d have been hard-pressed to find any visual evidence that Pride was older than Rihanna’s hair), and, of course, a drag queen named Margaret Cholo drinking her own urine as she lip-synced to “Party in the USA.” Pride.

I’m on a homo-historical bent lately because word just came down that my spiritual pen mother, the ever-saucy nightlife gossip columnist Sweet Lips of the Bay Area Reporter, is retiring at age 87 after 39 years of covering a vibrant slice of the San Francisco gay scene. Child, she did not go easy — for the past few years she was homebound, but that didn’t stop her from sending her “spies” out into the bars and reporting all the scandal and drama. I was terrified of these spies. Sweet Lips knew all, and wasn’t afraid to say it.

In 39 years I’ll be 42, and I write about all kinds of scenes besides the gay one. But I stand on the padded and studded shoulders of Sweet Lips, Mr. Marcus (her leather-scene chronicling coworker who passed away earlier this year), and all the other dishy, insomniac, probably slightly alcoholic, definitely devoted nightlife columnists who came before me. Thank you, Ms. Lips: Long live the mouthy queens.

 

DAM FUNK

If you haven’t tuned in to this Angelino master of Princely funk — or at least tripped out once to the deconstructed ’80s wonder of his recent Toeachizown — then you crazy. Live, he’s even better, and will be joined by synth-loner Nite Jewel. (They’ll both join forces for a Nite Funk performance as well.) DJ Pickpocket presides.

Thu/1, 9 p.m., $15 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

 

SINGULAR SENSATION

Let’s get sweaty! Far-too-hip Los Angeles dance instructor Ryan Heffington is coming to town to Olivia Newton your John on the dance floor. Think Richard Simmons without the peek-a-boo shorts and closet. Fauxnique and Husband host, DJs Pee Play and Stanley Frank lube up the legwarmers.

Thu/1, 10 p.m., $7. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. www.paradisesf.com

 

MARQUES WYATT

With his weekly Deep parties, Marques has pretty much held down the L.A. fort for soulful house music, single-handed, for the past 13 years or so. His sets can get heady — he’s not afraid to take you into some fierce and spiritual headspace — but build so much organic rhythmic momentum that you won’t mind leaping into the void. With M3 and Jayvi Velasco.

Fri/2, 9 p.m., $10. Triple Crown, 1760 Market, SF. www.triplecrownsf.com

 

JANAKA SELEKTA

Bay homeboy Janaka wickedly melds classical Indian sounds to deep dub and dread bass, and new album Pushing Air is full of sweeping melodies and haunting breakdowns. He’ll be supporting the rumbly nodding of our own Mighty Dub Killaz at one of SF’s raddest weekly parties, Dub Mission.

Sun/4, 9 p.m., $8–$11. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

 

INDEPENDANCE

An annual July Fourth weekend tradition, Stompy and Sunset’s 12-hour extravaganza on the patio of Cafe Cocomo brings together some of the best names in funky house and techno in town. This year, they’re adding legendary deep house pioneer Kerri “Kaoz” Chandler as headliner. Could it get any better? Hell yeah, there’s a BBQ before 9 p.m., too

Sun/4, 2 p.m., $10–$20. Cafe; Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.pacificsound.net

Our Weekly Picks: June 31-July 6

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 30

FILM

The Hidden Fortress

There are certain experiences that, when given the chance, you should never pass up. Skydiving, for instance. Eating unusually good pizza. Seeing a Kurosawa film on the big screen. Well rejoice, reader, because at least one of those three is within your immediate grasp. UC Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive is celebrating the centennial of Akira Kurosawa’s birth with a summer-long retrospective. On June 30, it will be showing The Hidden Fortress (1958), which directly inspired the (good) Star Wars trilogy and by proxy, pretty much every lighthearted action/fantasy caper you’ve ever seen. Also keep an eye out for The Seven Samurai (1954) on July 17, Yojimbo (1961) on July 24, and Ran (1985) on Aug. 21. (Zach Ritter)

7 p.m., $5.50–$9.50

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk

(510) 642-5249

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

EVENT

God’s Lunatics

One of the main problems with today’s secularist revival is that it has no sense of the grotesque. Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are bright dudes, but they can be just as dour and unyielding as their fundamentalist targets. They tend to lose sight of the notion that fanatics are more susceptible to mockery than they are to sober polemics. Enter award-winning author Michael Largo, whose new book God’s Lunatics takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of faith’s more ridiculous manifestations. The work presents a Victorian freak show of cult leaders, mystics, and crusaders from throughout history, chronicling the chaos and pitch-black comedy that inevitably results when humans exchange rational thought for passionate, earnest insanity. (Ritter)

7 p.m., free

Modern Times Bookstore

888 Valencia, SF

(415) 282-9246

www.mtbs.com

 

THEATER

Young Frankenstein

If you’ve seen Mel Brooks’ classic spoof Young Frankenstein (1974), you know that migrating humps, rolls in ze hay, and correcting people’s mispronunciation of his name are all in a day’s work for the young Dr. Frankenstein. But apart from his monster’s debut, which features a classy take on “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” he’s not necessarily one for musical numbers. Until 2007, that is, when the stage musical adaptation of the film premiered in Seattle, then migrated to Broadway, following in the footsteps of Brooks’ successful musical reworking of The Producers (1968) with collaborator Thomas Meehan. Now SF gets a taste of the wackiness, perhaps followed by the inevitable (if unfortunate) readaptation into film. (Sam Stander)

Through July 25

Tues.–Sat., 8 p.m. (also Wed. and Sat., 2 p.m.);

Sun, 2 p.m., $30–$99

Golden Gate Theatre

One Taylor, SF

(415) 551-2000

www.shnsf.com

 

THURSDAY 1

VISUAL ART

“Renaissance”

Many of the images in Bill Armstrong’s “Renaissance” series possess the eeriness of a certain strain of uncanny portrait photography, but these photos don’t incorporate living models. They’re defocused captures of Renaissance-era drawings that Armstrong has painted over with bright swathes of color. The out-of-focus effect combines with his choice of colors to lend the photos a haunting depth, so much so that it’s sometimes easy to forget the inanimate qualities of the subjects. Despite their vivaciousness, the sometimes bizarre hues prevent the images from seeming entirely organic. By photographing works of printed art, Armstrong plays with the idea of the photographic subject, resulting in these deceptively simple and fascinating shots. (Stander)

Through Aug. 28

Opening 5:30–7:30 p.m., free

Dolby Chadwick Gallery

210 Post, SF

(415) 956-3560

www.dolbychadwickgallery.com

 

FRIDAY 2

FILM

San Francisco Frozen Film Festival

The San Francisco Frozen Film festival’s mission statement insists “we seek to unfreeze the arts frozen beneath the weighty realities of prejudice, poverty, ignorance, and isolation.” I’m just hoping that means the name does not, in fact, reference Mark Twain’s played-out ol’ chestnut about summer temperatures in San Francisco. Whatever. This intriguing, up-and-coming fest plunges into its fourth incarnation with Dive, a doc about Dumpster diving, and continues with a variety of shorts programs (doc, experimental, animated, comedic — there’s even a “crime and western” category!), plus features like Do It Again (Kinks), about a fan’s rabid quest to get his favorite band to reunite, and 16 mm New Jersey surf film A Pleasant Surprise. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sat/3, $10

Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF

www.frozenfilmfestival.com

 

THEATER

Left of Oz

No matter how many times The Wizard of Oz is revamped, remade, or spoofed, the results are always different from what came before. This summer season, Left of Oz comes to Ashby Stage, and if you couldn’t guess by the title, the tagline — “Dorothy Comes Out!” — gives away the game. Dorothy swaps the yellow brick road for a bus to San Francisco, where she hopes to find herself and some Sapphic loving. Left borrows clichés associated with San Francisco (tie-dye, marijuana, yoga) and merges them with the fantasy elements of Victor Fleming’s 1939 movie, flipping the whole sparkly thing on its head. There may have been previous queer readings of Oz, but Left has to be among the most playful. (Ryan Lattanzio)

Through July 18

Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun, 7 p.m., $25–$50

Ashby Stage

1901 Ashby, Berk.

(510) 841-6500

www.leftofoz.com

 

MUSIC

Carte Blanche

It may be impossible to predict the music game, but so far DJ Mehdi is 1 for zero. Sure, these days it’s not uncommon for a hip-hop single to blatantly cop a beat from Daft Punk, but French DJ Mehdi Favéris-Essadi has been mixing the hip-hop and dance since the days when finding Daft Punk on your rap CD was like finding a cockroach in your cereal. Now the Ed Banger cohort has hooked up with U.K. house DJ Riton to form the duo Carte Blanche, and the pair are banging out hard Chicago house like it’s next in line to take over the world. With Mehdi’s track record, I wouldn’t necessarily count it out. With White Girl Lust, Alona, and Shane King. (Peter Galvin)

9 p.m., $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

EVENT

“Mission Muralismo Celebrates the Graff Convention”

If there’s one thing the de Young Museum is prospering at recently, it’s the way it has been bringing SF communities not usually done right by the fine art world into its fold, and respectfully. From establishing its Native American Programs Board to this week’s continuation of the Mission Muralismo street art event series, more of the neighborhood is finding reasons to get its bags searched to enter that crazy bronze building. At the Graff Convention, the city’s top burners and sprayers will share their knowledge in lecture form, and Audiobraille will supply funky Latin jazz beats. Just don’t bring your new aerosol — that shit will get taken for sure. (Caitlin Donohue)

5–8:45 p.m., free

de Young Museum

50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr., SF

(415) 750-3600

www.famsf.org

 

SATURDAY 3

MUSIC

Fillmore Jazz Festival

San Francisco has no shortage of street fairs. But unlike those held in the duller byways of suburbia, each gathering has its own neighborhood flavor: the Haight hosts a hippie happening, Union Street conveys a yuppie flair, and the Fillmore pays homage to the music that made it famous back in the day: jazz. Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington rocked the local clubs then, and while the area has changed dramatically over the years, there’s a bit of a flashback feel during this annual fest. Along with the usual street food and craft vendors, there’ll be stages of talent, including Bobbie Webb and the Smooth Blues Band, Kim Nalley, Marcus Shelby Orchestra, the Coltrane Church, and much more. (Eddy)

Through Sun/4

10 a.m.–6 p.m., free

Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, SF

www.fillmorejazzfestival.com

 

SUNDAY 4

EVENT

“Pooches on Parade”

For its second year in a row, Half Moon Bay hosts “Pooches On Parade,” where you can show off your dog-walking skills — oh, and your dog, of course — if Fido or Fifi is up to par, that is. If you don’t have a dog, the event coordinators are willing to spare their imaginary dogs, Cuff and Link. Even a stuffed animal will suffice. Afterward, if all the doggone mayhem awakens your carnivorous appetite, there’s a “Bark BQ” where you and your pooch can dine while enjoying a live band. Unless you’re a staunch cat person, so many dogs in one place is probably reason enough to make the trip down coastside. (Lattanzio)

Noon, free ($10 for same-day parade registration)

Main Street

Half Moon Bay

www.poochesonparade.org

 

EVENT/DANCE

“Tango in the Square”

As we’ve all been repeatedly reminded, “it takes two to tango.” But before pairing off, it might be useful to learn a few basics by yourself. You can start by promenading (yes, that’s a step) over to Union Square for “Tango in the Square.” The event is part of Union Square’s 2010 Jewels in the Square series, which offers free lessons in milonga, tango, and vals (tango waltz). With hot new moves, you’ll be ready to hit the square’s open dance floor. Choose among a variety of partners (professional and amateur), watch performances by experienced tango dancers, or simply enjoy the live music by the Argentine tango band Tangonero. (Gaydos)

2 p.m., free

Union Square

Powell and Geary, SF

www.unionsquarepark.us/JewelsJuly

 

EVENT

Fourth of July Waterfront Celebration

If patriotic displays of gunpowder are what you seek on America’s 234th birthday, Bay Area skies will not let you down. Particularly brave San Francisco residents and their pushy out-of-town guests can head to Pier 39 for a full day of Uncle Sam-endorsed fun, with live music (including “the soft rock explosion of Mustache Harbor” — God bless irony, and God bless the U.S.A.), street performers, and fireworks galore. Pray for an unfoggy night, kids. Alternative: live in the Mission? Get thee to your roof to spot all the homespun, charmingly dangerous fireworks that inevitably appear every July 4. You’ll be up all night listening to them anyway. (Eddy)

3–9:30 p.m., free

Pier 39, SF

www.pier39.com/Events

 

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Stage listings

David Talbot
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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.

THEATER

OPENING

Beijing, California Thick House Theater, 1695 18th St; www.asianamericantheater.org. $15-25. Opens Thurs/2, 8pm. Plays Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through July 17. Asian American Theater Company presents a new play by Paul heller set in the year 2050, when China invades America.

Posibilidad, or Death of the Worker Dolores Park and other sites; 285-1717, www.sfmt.org. Free. Previews Sat/3, 2pm. Opens Sun/4, 2pm. Runs Sat-Sun, Sept 6, 2pm; Sept 17, 8pm. The San Francisco Mime Troupe opens its 51st season with a modern song and tango about politics in the workplace.

BAY AREA

Left of Oz Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-50. Opens Fri/2 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm, Sun, 7pm. Through July 18. Stephanie’s Playhouse presents a lez-queer musical comedy following the out west adventures of Dorothy.


ONGOING

Abigail: The Salem Witch Trials Temple SF, 540 Howard; www.templesf.com. $10. July 8, 29, Aug 5, 12, 19, 26, 9pm. Through Aug 26. Buzz Productions, with Skycastle Music and Lunar Eclipse Records, presents an original rock opera based on the Salem witch trials.

*Blackbird: Honoring a Century of Pansy Divas Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission; 786-9325, www.evezen.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 10. The intimate Blackbird Funeral Parlour Speakeasy is somber-toned and deceptively hushed, complete with period furnishings, a see-through dressing room, softly flickering altar, and obligatory piano. Only a few moments into Seth Eisen’s exceptional one-man cabaret, however, and the place is alive and kicking: doleful aspects of the décor making ample room for a sly, vigorous, soulful performer and a completely unexpected journey through some vibrant underground queer history (backed by fellow Circo Zero alum Sean Feit’s sharp musical direction and breezy accompaniment, and Alanna Simone’s gently humorous and haunting video pieces). Your guide is 100-year-old Jean Marlin, author of the notorious 1930s Pansy Craze, 75 years dead and looking fabulous in tails, bold green cravat, dapper purple hankie and a topping of regal black plumage (costumer Jack Davis demonstrates a genius throughout for turning a shoestring budget into a G-string–supported extravaganza). A multifaceted performer with quick tongue, nimble steps, and hearty voice (giving life to an assortment of extraordinary songs), Eisen uses drag, dance, puppetry, and performance art techniques to give flight to worthy exotic blackbirds known and forgotten—drag queen Zen priest Tommy Issan Dorsey; sexually ambiguous Danny Kaye; Brazil’s inimitable Ney Matogrosso; the definitely outré Klaus Nomi; and disco treasure Sylvester, whose live rendition of the Beatles’ "Blackbird" at SF’s War Memorial Opera House is one of several standout moments in this rollicking and poignant act of resurrection, insurrection, and homage. (Avila)

Die Walküre War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $15-360. Wed/30, 7pm. Through Wed/30. San Francisco Opera presents the second installment of Wagner’s Ring cycle, directed by Francesca Zambello.

"Durang Me!" Next Stage, 1620 Gough; 1-800-838-3006, www.custommade.org. $10-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 10. Christopher Durang’s The Actor’s Nightmare could just as easily be called The Accountant’s Nightmare, as befuddled Everyman and presumed non-actor George Spelvin (Eric O’ Kelly) attempts to navigate his way out of a confused rendition of Noel Coward’s "Private Lives" dressed as Prince Hamlet and menaced by a trashcan-bearing Beckett-arian (AJ Davenport). This traditional companion piece to Durang’s Catholic School send-up Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You references a Catholic boyhood several times, but it is the anxiety of the present moment that prevails, as the stage clears, and Spelvin is chased into a corner by an unforgiving spotlight to deliver his frantic last-ditch attempt at a soliloquy: his ABC’s. The titular Sister Mary Ignatius (AJ Davenport), by turns arctic and expansive, attempts to explain all, while periodically trotting out her star pupil Thomas (Cole Cloud) to recite catechism and spell eck-u-men-ickle for cookies. Davenport plays the pedantic side of Sister Mary with humorous vigor, but when a group of her former students drop by "to embarrass her" she doesn’t quite pull off embodying the ogress of their now-adult nightmares. Of her former students, it is probably Aloysius Benheim (Eric O’Kelly) who comes across as the most damaged by her tyranny, and not coincidentally, suffers the piece’s greatest humiliation. (Nicole Gluckstern)

La Fanciulla Del West War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness; www.sfopera.com. $15-360. Fri/2, 8pm. Through Fri/2. San Francisco Opera presents Puccini’s opera, with Deborah Voigt as Minnie.

How the Other Half Loves Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason; (800) 838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $35, Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 31. Off Broadway West Theatre Company presents an early play by Alan Ayckbourn.

Krapp’s Last Tape Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/3. Cutting Ball Theater remounts its strong recent production of Samuel Beckett’s hour-long solo play, featuring a full-fledged and satisfying turn by a hearty, slyly comic Paul Gerrior as the titular Krapp, reflecting on the fleeting sense of self recorded on reel-to-reel tapes over the course of a long life. Artistic director Rob Melrose approaches the material with supreme assurance and passionate but never stifling fidelity. David Sinaiko provides the recorded voice of the younger Krapp, expertly balancing a passion and unselfconscious pomposity that has Gerrior’s Krapp alternately bemused, euphoric, and wincing through one of Beckett’s most autobiographical and surprisingly affirming pieces. Melrose’s choice use of scenic elements, meanwhile, including the palpably solid 1950s-era tape machine, places Gerrior (suitably odd and natty in costumer Maggie Whitaker’s dapper vest, high-water trousers and white shoes) in a kind of communion with the reel and the real—an affecting and quietly unsettling relationship, pitched against an infinite blackness all around, that has Krapp at one point resting his head gently on the machine as he and the insubstantial voice of his younger self relive a moment of intimacy with a long-gone lover. (Avila)

The New Century New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; July 11, 2pm. Through July 11. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Paul Rudnick’s bill of short comedies.

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

Reading My Dad’s Porn and French Kissing the Dog The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 17. The title of San Francisco writer-performer Cherry Zonkowski’s confessional solo show gives only a little away—a passing detail from the Nordic diversions of a spirited army brat and daughter of an alcoholic father—but the rest of the narrative leaves even less to the imagination. An account of Zonkowski’s initiation into the sex party and BDSM scene, Reading My Dad’s Porn bounces gleefully between comically graphic depictions of sweaty, writhing Bay Area meet-and-greets and a childhood and young adulthood buried in family dysfunction, a loveless marriage, and the grueling teaching load of a recent English PhD. Ultimately, it’s the story of a woman finding her own identity and community, and if the outlines sound familiar they also feel that way. The straightforward plot—peppered with humorous details and asides (as well as the odd song, accompanied by accordionist Salane Schultz, alternating nights with Aaron Seeman)—lacks both urgency and characters of much complexity. The story’s patina of outré sex, meanwhile, is far from revelatory and too superficial and jokey to offer much dramatic heft. Nevertheless, the show, developed with director David Ford, draws a limited appeal from the force of Zonkowski’s extroverted personality, whose orientation sexual and otherwise skews toward fun—although her more aggressive attempts to corral the audience into participating (mainly vocally) in the show’s narrative high jinx may put some off even more than the fisting by the snack table. (Avila)

What Mama Said About Down There Our Little Theater, 287 Ellis; 820-3250, www.theatrebayarea.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through August 28. Writer-performer-activist Sia Amma presents this largely political, a bit clinical, inherently sexual, and utterly unforgettable performance piece.

BAY AREA

The Drawer Boy Marion E. Greene Black Box Theatre, 531 19th St, Oakl. www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/4. TheatreFIRST presents Michael Healey’s comedy about two aging farmers with a family secret.

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat/3, July 24, 31, 8pm; July 18, 25, Aug 1, 7pm; Fri/ 2, July 9, 16, 9pm. Through August 1. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

"Fireworks Festival" Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $25-35. Through Sat/3, showtimes vary. This performance festival includes work by John Leguizamo, David Sedaris (whose show is already sold out), Dan Hoyle, and Wes "Scoop" Nisker.

Les Liasons Dangereuses Redwood Ampitheatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; (415) 251-1027, www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Thurs-Sun, 7:30pm; also July 7, 7:30pm. Through July 10. Porchlight Theatre Company presents a production of Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of the 1782 novel.

Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/ 2, 9, 7pm; Sat/3, 5pm; July 11, 2pm. Through July 11. Ann Randolph’s comic solo show about an irreverent woman’s trip back to her childhood home in Ohio.

Shaker Chair Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear Avenue, Mtn View; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (also July 10, 2pm; no performance Sun/4). Through July 11. Pear Avenue Theatre presents Adam Bock’s play about a middle-aged widow who applies Shaker philosophy to her lifestyle.

Speech & Debate Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $34-55. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm, 7pm; Tues, 7pm. Through July 18. Aurora Theatre closes its 18th season with Stephen Karam’s comedy about three teen misfits connected to a small town sex scandal.


PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Theatre Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, B350 Fort Mason; 474-6776, www.improv.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through July 31. Bay Area Theatresports presents an evening of theater and comedy.

The Bowls Project: Secrets of the Apocalyptic Intimate Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Sculpture Court, 701 Mission; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Tues/6, 6-8pm, free. Through August 22. Charming Hostess presents a series of performances in conjunction with an interactive sound sculpture.

Hannibal Buress Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell; 861-2011, www.rickshawstop.com. Wed/30, 8pm. $12. The Saturday Night Live writer performs along with W. Kamau Bell and Jen Slusser.

Curtain Up! The Life and Times of Ethel Merman Martuni’s, 4 Valencia; 241-0205, www.dragatmartunis.com. Wed/30, 7pm. Tom Shaw Trip presents an evening devoted to the famous indomitable diva.

Kinsey Sicks: Each Hit & I Rrazz Room, 222 Mason; (866) 468-3399, www.theRRazzroom.com. Tues/6, 7pm. $35-40. An all new musical revue with parodies of Katy perry and others.

Liz Grant Variety Pack Comedy Show Purple Onion, 140 Columbus; 200-8781, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri, 4:30pm. Through Sept 3. $10. A changing lineup of stand up comedy.

Qcomedy Showcase Martuni’s, 4 Valencia; 241-0205, www.Qcomedy.com. Mon, 5pm. A weekly show of queer comedy.

The Romane Event Make Out Room, 3225 22nd St; 647-2888, www.pacoromane.com. Wed/30, 7:30pm. $7. A comedy event led by SF comedian Paco Romane.

BAY AREA
Backroom Comedy 5332 College, Oakl; (510) 655-3929, www.candychurilla.com. Wed/30, 8pm. Free, A stand up comedy show hosted by Candy Churilla.

Live Shots: San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration, 06/27/2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Who could have asked for a more delicious day than this Sunday to celebrate Pride? The amazing weather was perfect for parasols, skimpy speedos, and a few buckets of body glitter. The parade, celebrating it’s 40th year, drew hordes of spectators who sandwiched themselves up and down Market Street for miles. It was exciting to see such a diverse audience and also a variety of groups participating in the parade, from politicians and coalitions to drag queens and gigantic human cupcakes.

Attack of the Biebians!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Lesbians who look like Justin Bieber. You’ve followed it online, but the awesome Cockblock party made it a reality with a recent lookalike contest This weekend, hit up Cockblock after-Dyke March party (Sat/26) and Les Beaux after-Pride joint (Sun/27). Details here. You’ll be “one less lonely girl.”

Frameline34: Local drama “The Stranger in Us”

Sue Vaughan
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Frameline34: Local drama “The Stranger in Us”

Local filmmaker Scott Boswell may not have set out to make the film he ended up with, but he stands behind the finished product. The Stranger In Us stars Shortbus’ Raphael Barker as Anthony, a young man who moves from Virginia to San Francisco in order to live with his boyfriend Stephen (Scott Cox). When the relationship turns violent, Anthony finds solace in his friendship with Gavin (Adam Perez), an underage street huster. I spoke to Boswell and Barker about the film’s origins, its unique content, and what this year’s San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival says about the future of queer cinema.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: What was your inspiration for The Stranger In Us? Where did the story come from?

Scott Boswell: Ultimately the story ended up being fairly autobiographical. But it started in a different place. Originally — and Raphael knows this because we talked about it — originally, I had intended to do a much more experimental film, kind of a hybrid documentary-narrative, because of my fascination with the Polk Street, Tenderloin area, which I’ve always had since I moved here in the mid ‘90s. I had considered doing a bit of a portrait of the neighborhood, and kind of infusing actors into it, just shooting a lot of footage and seeing what we came up with. There’s a part of me that wishes I had still done that, but in all honesty, I can say that after Raphael expressed some interest in the project, I suddenly felt like it needed to be more narrative in its scope. He didn’t suggest that. It was just my intuition around the project. So I had been talking to him about doing it for months, without even having a complete script, and continued writing it and auditioning actors. Eventually it became much more traditional in terms of its narrative. It became what it is now.

SFBG: And Raphael, what brought you onto the project?

Raphael Barker: Scott. There wasn’t really a finished script and a lot of it was sort of up in the air, but I was just really comfortable with the process and how it evolved, because it was Scott. He and I just hit it off really well.

SFBG: Did you collaborate at all in terms of creating the character of Anthony or writing the script?

SB: Not so much on the script. I run a screenwriting group, here in the city. It’s a small group and we meet a couple times a month, and they had the most impact on the final script. However, there are quite a few places in the script where it suddenly says, “We’re gonna improv here.” And there are definitely scenes where the actors brought the dialog to the scene. Quite a few, actually, especially between his character and Gavin, the street kid. Largely because they had such wonderful chemistry, and I felt like I could trust them to pull it off.

SFBG: Raphael, can you talk about how the improv process was, as an actor?

RB: Scott would set up the scene and then let us go, and just see what happens. And then would make comments as necessary and readjustments. But I felt very free to just let the scene kind of take over and do its thing. I think Scott and I are just both very instinctual. Like, “That’s not how I planned it, but I kind of like it that way. Let’s play with that.” I think especially when you’re talking about Gavin, there was something almost unwritten about our relationship that was allowed to evolve through improv.

SB: Right, because there’s a piece that’s semi-autobiographical that has a place in history, and then there’s the piece that — I feel like Gavin’s character brings a newness, a sort of unfinished, still to be defined ending. There was something about the energy that really brought novelty to the script.

SFBG: You said originally you wanted to showcase this particular neighborhood in your film, and then it became more of a narrative. But it’s still a very San Francisco film. How did you go about capturing that?

SB: The main thing was choosing that location as his studio that he moves into after leaving Stephen, which actually wasn’t true to my experience. However, the person on which Stephen is most based actually lives there, so I kind of flipped it. And the character on whom Gavin is based actually hung out in the Castro, not the Tenderloin. So I flipped those around, and then because the character is so stuck and lost and wandering, he was able to go out into the street and that became the portrait of the neighborhood right there. We had spent a lot of time trying to work out just how we were going to portray that, and ultimately he’s always in the space. I actually did go out and shoot footage of the neighborhood without Raphael, and none of that is in the film.

SFBG: Anthony moves to San Francisco from Virginia, so he’s experiencing the city from an outsider’s perspective. Why did you decide to write him that way? And Raphael, how did that affect your performance?

SB: I think it’s a very common experience in San Francisco. It seems like the majority of people I meet here have migrated from somewhere else. And I think especially for gay men, when we arrive here, we don’t always quite find what we’re expecting, and especially for queer youth, which is an idea that Gavin embodies. I’m very interested in that sort of push-pull between the desire to be in the city of San Francisco and the challenges that you can face when you arrive. So I was interested in exploring that experience, and I’ve found subsequently that quite a few people — they’re almost always gay men — have come to me and said that they relate to that experience. Different generations of men, and different decades of coming here. It seems to be a continuing phenomenon in a way. In that sense, I think it’s very much a San Francisco story, even though it could probably happen in just about any urban area, especially when someone who doesn’t have experience in an urban environment suddenly arrives and is just thrown into it.

RB: I experienced something very similar coming out here to chase after someone I was pretty in love with, and then being dumped like a week and a half after moving here. And just feeling like I didn’t have that orientation anymore, and everything in the city was associated with this person. I’m sure I’ve one of millions of stories of people — with San Francisco being a kind of pilgrimage, then as soon as we get here we complain about it. But we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, so there’s kind of that love-hate relationship with it. So I could definitely relate to coming out here to be with someone and having all that kind of expectation and hope, and then me kind of losing that central focus and orientation and realizing, “Now what?” I think that’s a theme that’s not just gay or even queer, but it seems like anyone I talk to who comes from a different place has that similar experience. They knew they needed to be out of wherever they were at, but they weren’t sure what they were exactly coming into.

SFBG: The film also deals with an abusive relationship, which is something we don’t see a lot of in queer cinema. I was wondering why you think that is, and also why you wanted to include it in your movie?

SB: I don’t know why it is, but because it is [not often seen] is one of the main reasons I wanted to include it. Hustlers and street kids appear in a lot of gay cinema  — and just to go down that tangent for a second — which is why I chose to not make that character the protagonist but a supporting role. In terms of same sex domestic violence, it is an issue that permeates probably just about any community, but I have seen and heard very little about it among same sex couples. There are some things, some things written and there’s an organization in San Francisco called Community United Against Violence that works to combat and end violence. So there are resources out there, but I wanted to explore it because it’s an issue that’s personal for me, on several levels. It’s something that I’ve experienced and it’s also something that I just personally have always cared about. I volunteered to do work at battered women’s shelters in the past—this was actually in Madison, Wisconsin, long before I’d ever had any kind of experience with it. What I find really interesting is the degree to which people don’t really understand it. No one thinks they’re going to enter a relationship like that. I certainly didn’t think so. I thought I understood it.

RB: Much less something that’s so countercultural in some sense.

SB: Yes, exactly.

RB: Like, “Oh, if I can requite this kind of relationship, that’s kind of the end game.”

SB: The thing is you don’t necessarily recognize it when you’re there. People always say, many people say and have said about this film, “Why does he stay? Why doesn’t he leave?” It’s interesting that people continue to not understand that issue, because it’s clearly a very common human experience. So I guess in a sense, that question to me opens up a dialog on the issue that I find very important. I’ve been asked that a lot from people, and so far, that’s only come from the very limited number of people who have seen [the film].

SFBG: Well, without sounding like I’m trying to justify the abuse at all, these characters are complex enough that you get a sense of why they’re together. You can see how they got to that point. How did you go about creating that, and making sure they weren’t too clear cut or one-dimensional?

RB: I think to show just how much we loved each other is one way to do it.

SB: Yeah, that was important. I approached this very much as a character piece. I mean, that’s what interests me as a filmmaker and as a writer. In terms of the kind of genres I might be able to work in, I think it’s an area I probably have more of a knack for. But I think it’s true for any genre you’re working in, you have to rewrite. You have to be able to get down the ideas and the scenes on paper, and then take a look at them and be open to feedback. And assessing where it is that they’re black-and-white or flat and one-dimensional, and trying to create scenes that are more organic and layered. So that’s what we did. Once I knew what the story was, it still took me a good nine months to write the thing before we started shooting.

SFBG: One last, much broader question. How have you seen queer cinema change over the years, and what is the direction that you see it taking?

SB: In just the past few days, in the films that I’ve seen at Frameline this year, I’m very excited. I think queer cinema has gotten better and better. I have reaffirmed my understanding of the necessity of LGBT festivals, because it has definitely gone through phases. There was kind of an indie new queer cinema in the early ‘90s, when Gus Van Sant was coming on the scene, and Gregg Arraki and Todd Haynes. Then in the later ‘90s and maybe early 2000s, it kind of evolved into a lighter, more mainstream cinema, which I actually don’t relate to as much. But the best of them are actually quite good. What I’ve seen more recently, and I hope our film falls into that, is really kind of the ability to look more closely at ourselves and tell our own stories without any kind of concern about the broader mainstream appeal. I know that those kinds of films still exist. I think that independent cinema has gotten to a place where it’s not just simply seeing ourselves portrayed on screen anymore, but it has to be good cinema now.

RB: I saw a lot of films at the Frameline festival two or three years ago when the documentary about the making of Shortbus came out, and it just made me realize that the quality — instead of it being a kind of niche genre, I don’t want to say the opposite of what you’re saying, but I almost see Frameline as becoming redundant, because the films are good enough to stand on their own. They don’t have to be a genre film or a niche or a sexuality genre film. We have to keep working and working toward the specific, and then eventually the specific becomes universal. And I think that’s the beauty of the films that are starting to come out. In the Frameline context, it’s going to actually make it almost redundant because they’re just going to be good films, period. That’s what excites me, because everyone’s experience is so unique. And sure, we’re working within paradigms and categories, but I think it’s just getting better.

SB: It’s interesting looking at where these films fit in in terms of festivals and markets and things like that. I guess what I was trying to say is that I feel like Frameline still needs to be around in order for these films to get shown, because they’re not all going to fit into SF International, they’re not all going to fit into all of the big festivals. The sort of bigger queer films coming out may not need Frameline. There have been a quite a few in recent years: Bad Education, Mysterious Skin, Capote. They’re playing at the bigger festivals or getting distribution without festivals. There is sort of a distinction there. But when I see something like I Killed My Mother, which just kind of knocked me on my ass because I thought it was so brilliant, I don’t know where else I would have seen it.

THE STRANGER IN US

Wed/23, 6:45 p.m., Roxie

Fri/25, 11 a.m., Castro

www.frameline.org

 

Your big queer week

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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ONGOING

Boys in their Bedrooms Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. Mon-Thu 5 p.m.–2 a.m., Sat–Sun 2 p.m.–2 a.m. Through June 30. Photographer Amos Mac of Original Plumbing zine gets up close and personal, chronicling the trans male lifestyle.

Chronotopia SOMArts, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 552-1770, www.somarts.org. Explore “the past, present, and future of queer histories” with this eye-popping photography exhibit that celebrates the spectrum of queer images.

Faetopia Festival Old Tower Records space at Market and Noe streets, SF; Various times and prices. Through June 26. www.playajoy.org/faetopia. The lovely, radical faeries of Comfort and Joy take over this huge space for a “remix of the past and present for future utopias,” including eco-homo installations, “cuddle cinema” events, and a gossamer wing-load of ideas and performances.

Frameline Film Festival Various locations; see website for dates and times, www.frameline.org. The humongous citywide queer flick fest is still going strong, with dozens of screen gems.

Golden Girls Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission, SF; (415) 690-9410, www.voicefactorysf.org. Thu/24 and Fri/25, 7p.m. and 9 p.m.. $20–$25. Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar are joined by Mike Finn and Laurie Busman for live-action versions of two all-new episodes of the beloved TV show.

National Queer Arts Festival Various locations; see website for details, www.queerculturalcenter.org. Experience scandalously good spoken word, cabaret, art installations, and so much more as this powerhouse monthlong celebration of queer revelations continues.

 

WEDNESDAY 23

Allstars 4 The Garage, 975 Howard, SF; (415) 518-1517, www.975howard.com. 8 p.m., $10-$20. An array of one-person shows and monologues that focus on the diversity and struggle of queer daily life.

Booty Call Q Bar, 456 Castro, SF; (415) 626-7220, www.qbarsf.com. 9p.m., $3. Juanita More, Joshua J, and photographers whip up dirty tunes and photobooth eye-candy, with DJ W, Jeremy of House of Stank.

HomoEvolution El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com. 8p.m., free. LGBT hip-hop showcase in full effect, with Foxxjazell, Bry’Nt, Benni E, Drew Mason, and Sgt. Sass.

Mary Go Round LookOut, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-3111, www.lookoutsf.com. 10 p.m., $5. House of Glitterati invades the weekly drag show, anchored by Suppositori Spelling, Cookie Dough, and Pollo Del Mar.

OH! Powerhouse, 1347 Folsom, SF; (415) 552-8689, www.powerhouse-sf.com. The Bright Young Gentlemen’s Adventuring Society cordially invites you to get it on. With DJs Taco Tuesday and PDX hottie Stormy.

Pullin’ Pork for Pride Pilsner Inn, 225 Church, SF; (415) 621-7058. 6 p.m.–9 p.m. free. Hot pork in hot buns (free sandwiches from the Funk N Chunk crew, we mean). It’s the Guardian’s annual free-for-all shindig with DJ Stanley Frank of Vienetta Discotheque, games, surprises, more.

Radar: Old School 3 San Francisco Public Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; (415) 557-4400, www.radarproductions.org. SF’s top writers reimagine the lives and legacies of queers gone by. With Justin Chin, Len Plass, Cyd Nova, and more.

 

THURSDAY 24

A Spot of Tea African American Arts and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.queerculturalcenter.org. 8 p.m., $12–$20. Original Plumbing brings on an all-transmale cabaret extravaganza with Chris Vargas, Berlin Reed, Ketch Wehr, Glenn Marla, and more.

Bad Reputation Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The sexy Lex’s infamous Pride kick-off, with DJs Jenna Riot and Dee Dee Crocodile, go-gos, drink specials. Oh, and smokin’ hot grrrls.

Bedtime Stories A Different Light, 498 Castro, SF; (415) 431-0891, www.adlbooks.com. 7:30 p.m., free. Fabio, oh, Fabio? Erotic gay romance author G.A. Hauser steams up the windows of A Different Light.

Carletta Sue Kay, Brent James, Pepperspray The Eagle, 398 12th St., SF. (415) 626-0880, www.sfeagle.com. 10 p.m., $5. Faggotty rock time. A screwed-up Appalachian-ish crooner, a naughty country high-flyer, and four heavy metal drag queens take over the Eagle. What’s not to love?

Gold Queers in the Night 111 Minna, SF; (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com. 9 p.m., $7. The Stay Gold and Hella Gay crews team up with Blood, Sweat, and Queers for an epic night of youthful, sweaty jams in the indie dance vein.

Gretchen Phillips and Phranc El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $8–$15. Texan Phillips and “all–American, Jewish, lesbian folksinger” Phranc bring the Sapphic sounds.

Marga Gomez is Proud and Bothered New Conservatory Theater, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-4914, www.nctcsf.org. 8 p.m., $28 advance. Also Sat/26. The hilarious lesbian Latina queen of comedy takes a sharp-shootin’ walk of shame through her not-so-Prideful past.

Nightlife California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse, SF; (415) 379-5128, www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $8–$10. Get thee to the awesome museum for tunes by Juanita More!, LadyHouse, and Stanley Frank, plus Sex Talk with Jane Tollini, and, of course, live penguins.

Queer Radicals New Valencia Hall, 625 Larkin, SF; (415) 864-1278. 7p.m., free (summer buffet for $7.50). A panel of queer and transgender activists discusses how to build a militant movement for LGBT liberation.

The Sound of Fabulous Mission High School, 3750 18th St., SF: www.sfprideconcert.org. 8 p.m., $15–$40. Also Fri/25. The Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco celebrates 30 years of, yes, fabulous, joining forces with the Gay Men’s Chorus, and the Freedom Marching Band for some “out loud and proud.”

Sybaritic Cougars with Ecosexual Tendencies Good Vibrations Polk, 1620 Polk, SF; (415) 345-0400, www.goodvibes.com. 6 p.m.–8 p.m., free. Sex-positive activists Annie Sprinkle and partner Beth Stephens host a retrospective of their Love Art Lab series.

The Tubesteak Connection Aunt Charlie’s, 133 Turk, SF; (415) 441-2922, www.auntcharlieslounge.com. 10 p.m., $4. A sticky, finger-lickin’, Hi-NRG hijinks tribute to bathhouse disco and funk rarities, swarthy clones, and outfits Grace Jones would die for. With DJ Bus Station John.

 

FRIDAY 25

Art Attack Pride Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF; (415) 348-0900, www.supperclub.com. 9 p.m., $20. Video artist III paints the club fuchsia for DJ Lady Kier of Deee-Lite, the return of drag-rock amazers Pepperspray, and LA mesh-wonder Fade-Dra.

Bearracuda Pride DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF; (415) 626-2532, www.dnalounge.com. 9 p.m.-late. $20. Two floors of beard rubs, belly bumps, fur fun, and hairy hijinks as the city’s wild bear club goes big. DJ Ted Eiel heads up.

Bibi Gay Middle Eastern Mega Pride Party Paradise, 1501 Folsom, SF; (415) 252-5018, www.paradisesf.com. 9 p.m., $15. One of the most-anticipated parties of the season, with DJs Nile, Nadar, and Cheon delving into global sounds for a hip-shaking, ululating crowd of all stripes. Hookahs! Hotties! Bellydancers!

Folsom Friday Various SoMa venues, www.folsomfriday.com. 10 p.m.–2 a.m., free. Shuttles run down Folsom Street all night for a sleazy-fun bar crawl in SF’s other mecca for queer venues, including Truck, Chaps, Powerhouse, Blow Buddies, Lone Star, Mr. S, and Off Ramp Leathers.

MR. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF; (415) 626-7001, www.mighty119.com. 8 p.m.–4 a.m. $15. Break out your giant fake mustaches: NYC’s Larry Tee and our own house hero David Harness rock all night at this annual campy hoot. Yes, there’ll be a hot ‘stache (and ‘stache-riding?) contest.

San Francisco Trans March Dolores Park, Dolores and 18th St.; (415) 447-2774, www.transmarch.org. 3 p.m. stage, 7 p.m. march; free. Join the transgender community of San Francisco and beyond for a day of live performances, speeches, and not-so-military marching.

Some Thing Biggest Bestest Gayest Funnest Drag Show Sensation! Ever The Stud, 399 Ninth St., SF; (415) 863-6623, www.studsf.com. 9 p.m.–4 a.m., $10. Er, the name kind of says it all? The packed weekly club goes nuclear. VivvyAnne ForeverMore, Glamamore, Juanita More, Down-E, Diamond Daggers, Anna Conda &ldots; who’ll walk away with the mushroom cloud?

Original Plumbing presents Unofficial! Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF; (415) 552-7788, www.elbo.com. 9 p.m., $10. A party in honor of trans pride and visibility — plus, it’ll be a blast. Rocco Katastrophe and Jenna Riot host, DJs Chelsea Starr and 100 spokes spin, furry photo booth, trans slideshow, performances by Glenn Marla and Ice Cream Socialites.

Trans March 2010 Dolores Park, 17 Street and Dolores, SF. Rally at 3:30, march at 7 p.m.. www.transmarch.org. “United by Pride, United by Power” is the theme of this year’s inspiring event, with performances by the Transcendence Gospel Choir, Nori Herras, and a ton more.

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SATURDAY 26

Big Top vs. Trannyshack Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; (415) 431-1151, www.eightsf.com. 9 p.m., $10 adv. Surely, it will be a circus when these two balls-out parties collide. Big Top brings the half-naked cockring-masters, Trannyshack brings the barkers. With DJ W. Jeremy. Midnight dragocalypse with Heklina, Ambrosia Salad, Miss Rahni, and more.

Bootie: Lady Gaga vs. Madonna DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF; (415) 626-2532, www.dnalounge.com. Could it get any stereotypically gayer? Don’t worry, punkers, the Bootie mashup crew are here to subvert it into happy chaos. Huge drag show at midnight.

Chaser: The Imminent Return EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF; (415) 896-1075, www.theendup.com. 5 p.m.–10 p.m., $10. Monistat lives! Her ass-whoopin’, drink-spillin’ drag club resurrects itself, with a full-on show of every insanely entertaining alternaqueen in the phonebook, apparently. Plus DJ Guy Ruben.

Cockblock Mega-Pride Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; (415) 861-2011, www.rickshawstop.com. 9 p.m., $20-$25. Wild, wet, and more wild at this ecstatic, high-hoofin’ joint for lezzies, queers, and lovers. With DJs Nuxx and Motive and hot chicks galore.

Excuses for Skipping and Lauren DeRose Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 3 p.m., free. Warm up for the Dyke March with these two live rockin’ acts.

Go Bang! Pride Edition Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025, www.decosf.com. 9 p.m.-after hours, $5. One of our cutest disco and house parties goes pink with DJs Jason Kendig, Marcelino Andrade, Sergio, and more. Expect to be turned out, put upside-down, and spun around.

Lights Down Low Pride Edition Triple Crown, 1760 Market, SF; (415) 863-3516, www.triplecrownsf.com. 8 p.m.–4 a.m., $15. The gonzo electro party delivers a worthy Pride blackout with DJs Larry Tee, Kim Ann Foxman, Saratonin from Brownies for my Bitches, Sleazemore, Derek Bobus, and more. Hosted by the Miss Honey kids and Davi.

LGBT Pride Celebration Civic Center, Carlton B. Goodlett Place and McAllister, SF; (415) 864-3733, www.sfpride.org. Noon–6 p.m., free. Celebrate LGBT pride at this free outdoor event featuring DJs, speakers, and live music. This is the first half of the weekend-long celebration sponsored by SF Pride, featuring hip-hop, a battle of the bands, and more.

LGBTQ History Bike Tour Meet at Cupid’s Arrow on the Embarcadero near the Ferry Building, SF; 2 p.m.–5 p.m., $5 donation. Get smart (and fit) for Pride on this eight-mile tour of queer history hotspots, ending up at the Dyke March.

Love and Happiness SOM, 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521, www.som-bar.com. 10 p.m.–4 a.m., $15. It’s a glorious old-school house reunion for the rainbow children, with David Harness and Ruben Mancias on decks, Robnoxious at the door, and Joseph Solis hosting.

Kiss Me Deadly Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. After the Dyke March, cool off (most likely get hotter) with DJ Bunnystyle of Blood, Sweat, and Queers.

Mango After Dyke March Party El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $10/$15. Food, drink, dancing, and girls, girls, girls at this juicy ladies night.

Pink Pleasure Party Good Vibrations Valencia, 603 Valencia, SF; (415) 522-5460, www.goodvibes.com. 8–10p.m., free. Drop in, dyke out, gear up for a sensual Pride at this Good Vibes mix n’ mingle.

Pink Saturday Castro District, SF; www.thesisters.org. 6p.m.–midnight, donation requested, all ages. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence host their cuckoo annual outdoor event, featuring entertainment, beer, cocktails, food, and, duh, cruising galore.

Pink Triangle Installation Twin Peaks Vista, Twin Peaks Blvd parking area, SF; (415) 247-1100, ext 142, www.thepinktriangle.com. 7:30–10:30 a.m., free. Bring a hammer and your hunky work boots and help install the humongous pink triangle atop Twin Peaks for everyone to see. Volunteers needed! Do it!

San Francisco Dyke March Dolores Park, Dolores and 18th St., SF; www.dykemarch.org. Rally at 3 p.m.. March at 7 p.m.. Free. The one “do not miss” event of Pride, with tons of entertainment and speakers, impossibly sexy crowd, and a “Dyke Planet, Green Planet” theme.

Sundance Saloon Pride Dance Hotel Whitcomb, 1231 Market, SF; (415) 626-8000, www.sundancesaloon.org. 8 p.m., $10. Also Sun/27. Shine up your spurs for a country line-dance party that’ll put you in a hootin’ mood.

 

SUNDAY 27

Body Rock Temple Bar, 600 Polk, SF; (415) 931-5196. 11 a.m.–6 p.m., 18+ free. Delightfully tawdry Miss Monistat queens it over this all-day dragstravaganza, featuring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Mutha Chucka, Cher-A-Little, and others. With crazy beats from Electronic Music Bears, High Fantasy, and more.

Gay Shame Goth Cry-In Outside LGBT Center, 1800 Market, SF; www.gayshamesf.org. 2 p.m.–3:30 p.m., free. Protest and grieve the commercialization of Pride and the community – throw on your blackest black and let the tears roll.

Juanita MORE!’s Pride Party 2010 Kelly’s Mission Rock, 817 Terry Francois Blvd, SF; (415) 626-5355, www.juanitamore.com. 2 p.m.–2 a.m., $35. Pretty much the charitable Pride party of the year, flooded with cool kids, admirers, and the sounds of the mind-blowing Cougar Cadet Corps Drumline. DJs James Glass, Chelsea Starr, Kim Ann Foxman, and many more. Benefiting Bay Positives. Shuttles available from the Pride Celebration.

Les Beaux SOM, 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521, www.som-bar.com. 3 p.m.–9 p.m., $10. Don’t catch your breath after Pride, girls. Get beautiful with Cockblock’s DJ Nuxx and decks guests Sarah Delush and Rapid Fire.

LGBT Pride Celebration Civic Center, Carlton B. Goodlett Place and McCallister, SF; (415) 864-3733, www.sfpride.org. Noon–7 p.m., free. The celebration hits full stride, with a buttload of musical and dance performances and, truly, something for everyone. Don’t forget your sunscreen or little umbrella.

LGBT Pride Parade Market at Davis to Market and Eighth Sts, SF; (415) 864-3733, www.sfpride.org. 10:30 a.m.–noon, free. This 40th annual parade, with an expected draw of 500,000, is the highlight of the Pride Weekend in the city that defines queer culture.

Honey Pride Paradise, 1501 Folsom, SF; (415) 252-5018, www.paradisesf.com. 6 p.m.–2:30 a.m., $3. Legendary (actually) disco DJ Steve Fabus goes classic house on us, joining the regular Honey Soundsystem discaires for stylish specialness all around. $8 beer bust 6 p.m.-9 p.m..  

Queerly Beloved Pink Sunday Party El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com. 3 p.m.–8 p.m., $5. Courtney Trouble and Tina Horn host this benefit for queerporn.tv. DJs Campbell and Venus in Furs, performers Alotta Boutte and Dexter James, kissing and kink booths, and dirty, sexy queers.

Too Fast for Love Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. “Shake it, fake it, take it” as DJ Campbell spins the dirty at this Pride after-affair.

Your big queer week

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Your big queer week

ONGOING

Boys in their Bedrooms Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. Mon-Thu 5 p.m.–2 a.m., Sat–Sun 2 p.m.–2 a.m. Through June 30. Photographer Amos Mac of Original Plumbing zine gets up close and personal, chronicling the trans male lifestyle on the sexy Lex’s walls.

Chronotopia SOMArts, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 552-1770, www.somarts.org. Explore “the past, present, and future of queer histories” with this eye-popping photography exhibit that celebrates the spectrum of queer images.

Faetopia Festival Old Tower Records space at Market and Noe streets, SF; Various times and prices. Through June 26. www.playajoy.org/faetopia. The lovely, radical faeries of Comfort and Joy take over this huge space for a “remix of the past and present for future utopias,” including eco-homo installations, “cuddle cinema” events, and a gossamer wing-load of ideas and performances.

Frameline Film Festival Various locations; see website for dates and times, www.frameline.org. The humongous citywide queer flick fest is still going strong, with dozens of screen gems.

Golden Girls Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission, SF; (415) 690-9410, www.voicefactorysf.org. Thu/24 and Fri/25, 7p.m. and 9 p.m.. $20–$25. Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar are joined by Mike Finn and Laurie Busman for live-action versions of two all-new episodes of the beloved TV show.

National Queer Arts Festival Various locations; see website for details, www.queerculturalcenter.org. Experience scandalously good spoken word, cabaret, art installations, and so much more as this powerhouse monthlong celebration of queer revelations continues.

 

 

WEDNESDAY 23

Allstars 4 The Garage, 975 Howard, SF; (415) 518-1517, www.975howard.com. 8 p.m., $10-$20. An array of one-person shows and monologues that focus on the diversity and struggle of queer daily life.

Booty Call Q Bar, 456 Castro, SF; (415) 626-7220, www.qbarsf.com. 9p.m., $3. Juanita More, Joshua J, and photographers whip up dirty tunes and photobooth eye-candy, with DJ W, Jeremy of House of Stank.

HomoEvolution El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com. 8p.m., free. LGBT hip-hop showcase in full effect, with Foxxjazell, Bry’Nt, Benni E, Drew Mason, and Sgt. Sass.

Mary Go Round LookOut, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-3111, www.lookoutsf.com. 10 p.m., $5. House of Glitterati invades the weekly drag show, anchored by Suppositori Spelling, Cookie Dough, and Pollo Del Mar.

OH! Powerhouse, 1347 Folsom, SF; (415) 552-8689, www.powerhouse-sf.com. The Bright Young Gentlemen’s Adventuring Society cordially invites you to get it on. With DJs Taco Tuesday and PDX hottie Stormy.

Pullin’ Pork for Pride Pilsner Inn, 225 Church, SF; (415) 621-7058. 6 p.m.–9 p.m. free. Hot pork in hot buns (free sandwiches from the Funk N Chunk crew, we mean). It’s the Guardian’s annual free-for-all shindig with DJ Stanley Frank of Vienetta Discotheque, games, surprises, more.

Radar: Old School 3 San Francisco Public Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; (415) 557-4400, www.radarproductions.org. SF’s top writers reimagine the lives and legacies of queers gone by. With Justin Chin, Len Plass, Cyd Nova, and more.

 

THURSDAY 24

A Spot of T African American Arts and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.queerculturalcenter.org. 8 p.m., $12–$20. Original Plumbing brings on an all-transmale cabaret extravaganza with Chris Vargas, Berlin Reed, Ketch Wehr, Glenn Marla, and more.

Bad Reputation Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The sexy Lex’s infamous Pride kick-off, with DJs Jenna Riot and Dee Dee Crocodile, go-gos, drink specials. Oh, and smokin’ hot grrrls.

Bedtime Stories A Different Light, 498 Castro, SF; (415) 431-0891, www.adlbooks.com. 7:30 p.m., free. Fabio, oh, Fabio? Erotic gay romance author G.A. Hauser steams up the windows of A Different Light.

Carletta Sue Kay, Brent James, Pepperspray The Eagle, 398 12th St., SF. (415) 626-0880, www.sfeagle.com. 10 p.m., $5. Faggotty rock time. A screwed-up Appalachian-ish crooner, a naughty country high-flyer, and four heavy metal drag queens take over the Eagle. What’s not to love?

Gold Queers in the Night 111 Minna, SF; (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com. 9 p.m., $7. The Stay Gold and Hella Gay crews team up with Blood, Sweat, and Queers for an epic night of youthful, sweaty jams in the indie dance vein.

Gretchen Phillips and Phranc El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $8–$15. Texan Phillips and “all–American, Jewish, lesbian folksinger” Phranc bring the Sapphic sounds.

Marga Gomez is Proud and Bothered New Conservatory Theater, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-4914, www.nctcsf.org. 8 p.m., $28 advance. Also Sat/26. The hilarious lesbian Latina queen of comedy takes a sharp-shootin’ walk of shame through her not-so-Prideful past.

Nightlife California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse, SF; (415) 379-5128, www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $8–$10. Get thee to the awesome museum for tunes by Juanita More!, LadyHouse, and Stanley Frank, plus Sex Talk with Jane Tollini, and, of course, live penguins.

Queer Radicals New Valencia Hall, 625 Larkin, SF; (415) 864-1278. 7p.m., free (summer buffet for $7.50). A panel of queer and transgender activists discusses how to build a militant movement for LGBT liberation.

The Sound of Fabulous Mission High School, 3750 18th St., SF: www.sfprideconcert.org. 8 p.m., $15–$40. Also Fri/25. The Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco celebrates 30 years of, yes, fabulous, joining forces with the Gay Men’s Chorus, and the Freedom Marching Band for some “out loud and proud.”

Sybaritic Cougars with Ecosexual Tendencies Good Vibrations Polk, 1620 Polk, SF; (415) 345-0400, www.goodvibes.com. 6 p.m.–8 p.m., free. Sex-positive activists Annie Sprinkle and partner Beth Stephens host a retrospective of their Love Art Lab series.

The Tubesteak Connection Aunt Charlie’s, 133 Turk, SF; (415) 441-2922, www.auntcharlieslounge.com. 10 p.m., $4. A sticky, finger-lickin’, Hi-NRG hijinks tribute to bathhouse disco and funk rarities, swarthy clones, and outfits Grace Jones would die for. With DJ Bus Station John.

 

FRIDAY 25

Art Attack Pride Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF; (415) 348-0900, www.supperclub.com. 9 p.m., $20. Video artist III paints the club fuchsia for DJ Lady Kier of Deee-Lite, the return of drag-rock amazers Pepperspray, and LA mesh-wonder Fade-Dra.

Bearracuda Pride DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF; (415) 626-2532, www.dnalounge.com. 9 p.m.-late. $20. Two floors of beard rubs, belly bumps, fur fun, and hairy hijinks as the city’s wild bear club goes big. DJ Ted Eiel heads up.

Bibi Gay Middle Eastern Mega Pride Party Paradise, 1501 Folsom, SF; (415) 252-5018, www.paradisesf.com. 9 p.m., $15. One of the most-anticipated parties of the season, with DJs Nile, Nadar, and Cheon delving into global sounds for a hip-shaking, ululating crowd of all stripes. Hookahs! Hotties! Bellydancers!

Folsom Friday Various SoMa venues, www.folsomfriday.com. 10 p.m.–2 a.m., free. Shuttles run down Folsom Street all night for a sleazy-fun bar crawl in SF’s other mecca for queer venues, including Truck, Chaps, Powerhouse, Blow Buddies, Lone Star, Mr. S, and Off Ramp Leathers.

MR. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF; (415) 626-7001, www.mighty119.com. 8 p.m.–4 a.m. $15. Break out your giant fake mustaches: NYC’s Larry Tee and our own house hero David Harness rock all night at this annual campy hoot. Yes, there’ll be a hot ‘stache (and ‘stache-riding?) contest.

San Francisco Trans March Dolores Park, Dolores and 18th St.; (415) 447-2774, www.transmarch.org. 3 p.m. stage, 7 p.m. march; free. Join the transgender community of San Francisco and beyond for a day of live performances, speeches, and not-so-military marching.

Some Thing Biggest Bestest Gayest Funnest Drag Show Sensation! Ever The Stud, 399 Ninth St., SF; (415) 863-6623, www.studsf.com. 9 p.m.–4 a.m., $10. Er, the name kind of says it all? The packed weekly club goes nuclear. VivvyAnne ForeverMore, Glamamore, Juanita More, Down-E, Diamond Daggers, Anna Conda &ldots; who’ll walk away with the mushroom cloud?

Original Plumbing presents Unofficial! Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF; (415) 552-7788, www.elbo.com. 9 p.m., $10. A party in honor of trans pride and visibility — plus, it’ll be a blast. Rocco Katastrophe and Jenna Riot host, DJs Chelsea Starr and 100 spokes spin, furry photo booth, trans slideshow, performances by Glenn Marla and Ice Cream Socialites.

Trans March 2010 Dolores Park, 17 Street and Dolores, SF. Rally at 3:30, march at 7 p.m.. www.transmarch.org. “United by Pride, United by Power” is the theme of this year’s inspiring event, with performances by the Transcendence Gospel Choir, Nori Herras, and a ton more..

 

SATURDAY 26

Big Top vs. Trannyshack Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; (415) 431-1151, www.eightsf.com. 9 p.m., $10 adv. Surely, it will be a circus when these two balls-out parties collide. Big Top brings the half-naked cockring-masters, Trannyshack brings the barkers. With DJ W. Jeremy. Midnight dragocalypse with Heklina, Ambrosia Salad, Miss Rahni, and more.

Blow Off Slim’s 333 11th St., SF. (415) 255-0333, www.slims-sf.com. 10pm, $15-$20. DJs Bob Mould (of Sugar) and Rich Morel spin the rock remixes for a packed crowd of large hairies, scruffy fairies, and their admirers. Get into it. 

Bootie: Lady Gaga vs. Madonna DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF; (415) 626-2532, www.dnalounge.com. Could it get any stereotypically gayer? Don’t worry, punkers, the Bootie mashup crew are here to subvert it into happy chaos. Huge drag show at midnight.

Chaser: The Imminent Return EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF; (415) 896-1075, www.theendup.com. 5 p.m.–10 p.m., $10. Monistat lives! Her ass-whoopin’, drink-spillin’ drag club resurrects itself, with a full-on show of every insanely entertaining alternaqueen in the phonebook, apparently. Plus DJ Guy Ruben.

Cockblock Mega-Pride Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; (415) 861-2011, www.rickshawstop.com. 9 p.m., $20-$25. Wild, wet, and more wild at this ecstatic, high-hoofin’ joint for lezzies, queers, and lovers. With DJs Nuxx and Motive and hot chicks galore.

Excuses for Skipping and Lauren DeRose Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 3 p.m., free. Warm up for the Dyke March with these two live rockin’ acts.

Go Bang! Pride Edition Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025, www.decosf.com. 9 p.m.-after hours, $5. One of our cutest disco and house parties goes pink with DJs Jason Kendig, Marcelino Andrade, Sergio, and more. Expect to be turned out, put upside-down, and spun around.

Lights Down Low Pride Edition Triple Crown, 1760 Market, SF; (415) 863-3516, www.triplecrownsf.com. 8 p.m.–4 a.m., $15. The gonzo electro party delivers a worthy Pride blackout with DJs Larry Tee, Kim Ann Foxman, Saratonin from Brownies for my Bitches, Sleazemore, Derek Bobus, and more. Hosted by the Miss Honey kids and Davi.

LGBT Pride Celebration Civic Center, Carlton B. Goodlett Place and McAllister, SF; (415) 864-3733, www.sfpride.org. Noon–6 p.m., free. Celebrate LGBT pride at this free outdoor event featuring DJs, speakers, and live music. This is the first half of the weekend-long celebration sponsored by SF Pride, featuring hip-hop, a battle of the bands, and more.

LGBTQ History Bike Tour Meet at Cupid’s Arrow on the Embarcadero near the Ferry Building, SF; 2 p.m.–5 p.m., $5 donation. Get smart (and fit) for Pride on this eight-mile tour of queer history hotspots, ending up at the Dyke March.

Love and Happiness SOM, 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521, www.som-bar.com. 10 p.m.–4 a.m., $15. It’s a glorious old-school house reunion for the rainbow children, with David Harness and Ruben Mancias on decks, Robnoxious at the door, and Joseph Solis hosting.

Kiss Me Deadly Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. After the Dyke March, cool off (most likely get hotter) with DJ Bunnystyle of Blood, Sweat, and Queers.

Mango After Dyke March Party El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $10/$15. Food, drink, dancing, and girls, girls, girls at this juicy ladies night.

Pink Pleasure Party Good Vibrations Valencia, 603 Valencia, SF; (415) 522-5460, www.goodvibes.com. 8–10p.m., free. Drop in, dyke out, gear up for a sensual Pride at this Good Vibes mix n’ mingle.

Pink Saturday Castro District, SF; www.thesisters.org. 6p.m.–midnight, donation requested, all ages. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence host their cuckoo annual outdoor event, featuring entertainment, beer, cocktails, food, and, duh, cruising galore.

Pink Triangle Installation Twin Peaks Vista, Twin Peaks Blvd parking area, SF; (415) 247-1100, ext 142, www.thepinktriangle.com. 7:30–10:30 a.m., free. Bring a hammer and your hunky work boots and help install the humongous pink triangle atop Twin Peaks for everyone to see. Volunteers needed! Do it!

San Francisco Dyke March Dolores Park, Dolores and 18th St., SF; www.dykemarch.org. Rally at 3 p.m.. March at 7 p.m.. Free. The one “do not miss” event of Pride, with tons of entertainment and speakers, impossibly sexy crowd, and a “Dyke Planet, Green Planet” theme.

Sundance Saloon Pride Dance Hotel Whitcomb, 1231 Market, SF; (415) 626-8000, www.sundancesaloon.org. 8 p.m., $10. Also Sun/27. Shine up your spurs for a country line-dance party that’ll put you in a hootin’ mood.

 

SUNDAY 27

Body Rock Temple Bar, 600 Polk, SF; (415) 931-5196. 11 a.m.–6 p.m., 18+ free. Delightfully tawdry Miss Monistat queens it over this all-day dragstravaganza, featuring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Mutha Chucka, Cher-A-Little, and others. With crazy beats from Electronic Music Bears, High Fantasy, and more.

Gay Shame Goth Cry-In Outside LGBT Center, 1800 Market, SF; www.gayshamesf.org. 2 p.m.–3:30 p.m., free. Protest and grieve the commercialization of Pride and the community – throw on your blackest black and let the tears roll.

Juanita MORE!’s Pride Party 2010 Kelly’s Mission Rock, 817 Terry Francois Blvd, SF; (415) 626-5355, www.juanitamore.com. 2 p.m.–2 a.m., $35. Pretty much the charitable Pride party of the year, flooded with cool kids, admirers, and the sounds of the mind-blowing Cougar Cadet Corps Drumline. DJs James Glass, Chelsea Starr, Kim Ann Foxman, and many more. Benefiting Bay Positives. Shuttles available from the Pride Celebration.

Les Beaux SOM, 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521, www.som-bar.com. 3 p.m.–9 p.m., $10. Don’t catch your breath after Pride, girls. Get beautiful with Cockblock’s DJ Nuxx and decks guests Sarah Delush and Rapid Fire.

LGBT Pride Celebration Civic Center, Carlton B. Goodlett Place and McCallister, SF; (415) 864-3733, www.sfpride.org. Noon–7 p.m., free. The celebration hits full stride, with a buttload of musical and dance performances and, truly, something for everyone. Don’t forget your sunscreen or little umbrella.

LGBT Pride Parade Market at Davis to Market and Eighth Sts, SF; (415) 864-3733, www.sfpride.org. 10:30 a.m.–noon, free. This 40th annual parade, with an expected draw of 500,000, is the highlight of the Pride Weekend in the city that defines queer culture.

Honey Pride Paradise, 1501 Folsom, SF; (415) 252-5018, www.paradisesf.com. 6 p.m.–2:30 a.m., $3. Legendary (actually) disco DJ Steve Fabus goes classic house on us, joining the regular Honey Soundsystem discaires for stylish specialness all around. $8 beer bust 6 p.m.-9 p.m..  

Queerly Beloved Pink Sunday Party El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com. 3 p.m.–8 p.m., $5. Courtney Trouble and Tina Horn host this benefit for queerporn.tv. DJs Campbell and Venus in Furs, performers Alotta Boutte and Dexter James, kissing and kink booths, and dirty, sexy queers.  

Too Fast for Love Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. “Shake it, fake it, take it” as DJ Campbell spins the dirty at this Pride after-affair.

25 ideas for our queer future

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
25 ideas for our queer future

What does the future hold in store for us? In an age of mainstream assimilation and aspiration, is there even such a thing as the queer future? We asked 25 queer leaders, artists, and activists to offer visions in their areas of expertise. The results — philosophical, poetic, practical, and priceless — are inspiring. One thing’s for sure, we’ll never lose our creative spark. Nor will we lose our motivational zeal. Fate is for the lazy: take action now. (Marke B.)

>>Click here for ideas from our amazing 2010 Hot Pink List

>>Click here for our Pride listings, and get out there!

THE FUTURE OF QUEER ACTIVISM We need to take back the power and stop being led by what the other side is doing. We need to empower ourselves enough so that we are no longer reacting but acting. We must use online social networks the way we used the streets and bullhorns to show our strength, speak out against wrongdoing, change minds, and win back our rights. We also must unite with our allies in other communities that are underrepresented and maligned in much of the same ways we are. When we stand with one another, we have that much stronger a voice.

Kelly Rivera Hart is the founder of Poz Activists Network (pansf.blogspot.com).

THE FUTURE OF QUEER COMMUNITY The difference between straight and gay cultures seems to be breaking down more and more, which is one of our goals, but we still need to support our own businesses, nonprofits, and leaders. We need to continue interacting with each other in the real world and not lose sight of who we are and what we share. Despite how the rest of the world sees us, there is still a lot of loneliness and isolation in the queer community. I think many of us have forgotten even simple things, like how to make actual friends, not just online. And it’s so easy! Renewing that spirit of interaction, freeing ourselves from fear of judgment, and moving outside our “safe zone” can lead to the greatest rewards.

Mark Rhoades is a charitable event planner and fundraiser who throws the annual Cupid’s Back and City Hall Pride parties.

THE FUTURE OF QUEER FASHION The past decade has witnessed an obsession with bulky, voluminous silhouettes disguised as “futuristic avant-garde” and inspired by GaGa and the ’80s. Let’s move on. Through clean lines, elegance, and wearable pieces, the future of queer fashion will shine light on socially relevant issues like bottom shame, positive-negative status reinforcement, and elite subcultures by using gay textiles and forgotten, non-era-specific imagery.

Allán Herrera is the design head of fashion house Homo Atelier (www.homoatelier.com) and a founder of HomoChic (www.homochic.com).

THE FUTURE OF QUEER FILM Future queer film will depend on the gays being at the forefront of distribution technology in the same way we pioneered social networking 15 years ago, spreading provocative and sexually honest/explicit films beyond the film festival circuit and toward a global audience. Special attention must be paid to the creeping homophobia of cultural and technological juggernauts like Apple. Our stories will need to bust through the pigeonhole, weaving our traditional themes (AIDS, coming-of-age) into larger storylines that are relevant to multicultural and transcontinental viewers.

Leo Herrera is a video artist, filmmaker, and a founder of HomoChic (www.homochic.com).

THE FUTURE OF QUEER YOUTH To be a true leader, one must envision the future. The future is a diverse society where LGBTQQ youth are embraced for who they are and encouraged to be who they want to be. In my pursuit for LGBTQQ youth rights, leadership has been about fostering the awareness in LGBTQQ young people about their own power as individuals and as a group, supporting them to access, develop, and master the skills and knowledge they need to transform their power into action, and building bridges to opportunities where their action can create just communities.

Jodi Schwartz is the executive director of LYRIC Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (www.lyric.org).

THE FUTURE OF QUEER LABOR Storm of protest drives Congress to pass trans-inclusive ENDA! Support by labor unions critical to passage of this landmark legislation. Screaming, “We’re too queer for this bullshit!” workers hold drag-runway picket lines at transphobic companies across the country. Activists redefine the crisis of trans poverty and unemployment as the most critical queer civil rights issue of our time.

Bad hotel boycott forces Hyatt to sign a fair contract and treat their employees with respect. LGBTQ organizations rally with labor unions for immigration reform, hold signs reading “No borders on my cunt, no border on our countries!

Jane Martin is a queer labor activist and community organizer with SF Pride at Work (www.sfprideatwork.org).

THE FUTURE OF QUEER DRAG (PART ONE) My vision for the future of queer drag requires you to take a moment, stop, look, and listen to our past. We have such a rich history of fierce and amazing queens to learn from. The key is to get involved with a queer family that supports and loves you and what you do. Next, figure out your niche — whether it’s high drag or low camp, just be sure to always do it like you don’t need the money! Then pull it together and serve it up with lots of love and generosity. And, of course, top it all off with a fabulous wig!

Juanita More! (www.juanitamore.com) is the queen. Attend her boisterous Pride party on Sun/27 (see Pride listings), benefiting Bay Area Young Positives (www.baypositives.org).

THE FUTURE OF QUEER DRAG (PART TWO) Meg Whitman will become president of the United States and hire Lady Bunny as one of her speech writers. Oprah and Gayle will finally come out, and gender illusionist shows will dominate the OWN Network — every other channel will follow. In 2050, Heklina will clone herself, twice, and perform the hospital-convalescent home circuit as the Del Rubio Triplets. Apple will come out with a product called the iDrag, that transforms anyone into anything.

Fudgie Frottage is the king. He puts on the annual, wonderful SF Drag King Contest (www.sfdragkingcontest.com).

THE FUTURE OF QUEER DANCE FLOORS Lets start with a nice, clean piece of paper. Black paper. A clean slate. Say, for example, a deliriously rich and tasteful daddy were to buy the Stud. Step one: a deep, five-stage gay cleaning. Step two: gut the interior, maybe keep the bar and choo-choo train intact, they are cute. Otherwise keep it simple. Step three: install an exact copy of the sound system used by Dave Mancuso at the Loft parties in New York City. The tasteful daddy would have a matte gray private jet at our disposal to bring guests of our choosing. For the launch party we would have an all Kenny line-up: Kenny Dixon Jr., Kenny Hawkes, Kenny Carpenter, and Ken Collier (back from the dead) would DJ. Live PA by Kenny Bobien. Oh, and Kenny Kenny on the door. At the end, everyone would get together and cry like they do on those exploitative renovation reality shows. Daddy would miss the ribbon-cutting, but that’s OK — he sent flowers and bought an $80 Diptyque candle for the new bathroom. That would be a good start.

Honey Soundsystem is a future-past DJ collective. Catch the old-school house Honey Pride party on Sun/27 (see Pride listings).

THE FUTURE OF QUEER COMEDY The future is here. And now that gay marriage is mandatory for everyone, queer and straight, the same goes for comedy. All comedians, regardless of sexual orientation, are now required to do at least 75 percent queer comedy in their acts unless they obtain Permit No. 758219B through the Comedy Board, allowing for the special provision to do only 50 percent queer material. That’s right: comedy is now regulated by law. No jokes are allowed to have homophobic content, especially if you’re performing for tourists. Remember, you are ambassadors now. If you’re straight and have no queer material, just ask your aunt or your second cousin or your bachelor uncle whose best friend of 40 years, Bruce, comes to all the family functions.

Lisa Geduldig (www.koshercomedy.com) is a comic and MC who puts on such shows as Kung Pao Kosher Comedy, Funny Girlz, and Comedy Returns to El Rio!

THE FUTURE OF QUEER HOUSING It is beyond time for us queers to focus our fabulous and substantial God-given talents toward a vision of the future of queer housing. We are the trailblazers, the social entrepreneurs, the avant-garde. Imagining and creating the future is what we do best. Let’s put those substantial talents to work to realize our very own “No Place Like Home” dream of a home for our LGBT elders, our homeless LGBT youth, our people with HIV/AIDS, our artists, our activists, and everything in between. I’ll show you mine: the largest affordable housing for people with HIV/AIDS in the nation next to the Castro Theater and an LGBT homeless shelter at Geary and Polk. Now you show me yours.

Brian Basinger is the director of AIDS Housing Alliance/SF (www.ahasf.org).

THE FUTURE OF QUEER COMICS The future of LGBT comics will be about creators moving out of the traditional queer media ghetto and into new digital undergrounds, indie markets, and even the publishing mainstream. Web comics, graphic novels, minicomics, and zines … Queer comics will have to continue to diversify their formats to survive. At the core, though, remains the need to tell good stories! Look for more poignant narratives about the intersection of queer identities and the human condition. Also, robo-dykes, super-powered trannies, bisexual Lotharios, and zombie fags!

Justin Hall, a queer and erotic comics artist, runs All Thumbs Press (www.allthumbspress.com).

THE FUTURE OF QUEER LAW We would like to see the law catch up with the reality of transgender lives. Your gender identity is an innate and deeply felt sense of who you are. Whether you feel male, female, both, or neither, we envision a future where your legal gender will be exclusively determined by you and not by doctors or lawyers. By respecting your autonomy and your ability to know yourselves better than anyone else, the law will finally reflect society at large. The law is not far from fully recognizing that fact of life, but there is still work to be done. So break out your queer legal briefs and join in the fight for transgender civil rights!

Executive Director Masen Davis and the staff of the Transgender Law Center (www.transgenderlawcenter.org)

THE FUTURE OF QUEER SPIRIT As I look toward the future, I want to see the consciousness shift that Harry Hay and other gay pioneers were pushing for manifest itself more fully in both the gay culture and the larger hetero culture. As queer liberationists, we’ve already taught the world that we are a people. I want to see us recognized as always having been a people. I want to see us given the opportunity to cocreate a new, more beautiful world. To paraphrase: what if there were no “faggots,” only master healers, teachers, shamans? I hope to see the end of shame.

Zac Benfield is the president of the radical faerie Church of Nomenus. Attend his “Woo 101 for Hipster Faggots” workshop, part of the Faetopia Festival (See “Ongoing” in our Pride listings)

THE FUTURE OF QUEER SCIENCE

The alien scientist pipettes liquid
Into a flask to be shaken vigorously.
The origins of gay life.

On Earth, planets align, exposing
Realities once thought to be utterly impossible:
Gays are outta this world!

Queer scientists make the future
Always brighter, cleaner, sexier, and more fabulous
Stopping only for a cocktail.

Quietly, the gay scientist works,
Inching closer to the final answer that
Will change the world forever.

In the future of science
We see the world with different eyes,
All judged by ability alone.

Chris Waddling is a PhD scientist at UCSF.

THE FUTURE OF THE QUEER PAST The future of the queer past has always been fragile — and despite some positive developments in the past 25 years, it remains fragile today. The legacy of LGBT people is still largely invisible in the settings where our society formalizes its history. Our stories are rarely told in high school classrooms, in the galleries of museums, on the plaques of public monuments. Supporting the efforts and the growth of such organizations as the GLBT Historical Society and other pioneering queer history institutions will be key to ensuring that the memory of LGBT lives, struggles, setbacks, and triumphs can inform and inspire future generations.

Writer, editor, and antiquarian book dealer Gerard Koskovich is a founding member of the GLBT Historical Society and a member of the board of directors of the Mémorial de la Déportation Homosexuelle, a French national group that commemorates the homosexual victims of the Nazis.

THE FUTURE OF THE QUEER FUTURE My future selves are always popping back from the year 2023 or 2034 for the weekend, mostly because they know I’ll be their sex slave. They remember what 2010-me was like. (And apparently in the mid-2020s, time-traveling self-flagellation becomes a big fetish.) They’re not supposed to tell me anything about The Future, but they let slip wee details here and there — the 20-teens are a troubling time, but then we discover queer telepathy, and everybody starts secreting empathy endorphins and building communal gardens in the upper atmosphere. Hang in there until we get the first queer president, they always say. Once she comes out during her second term, that’s when the government really starts building something.

Charlie Anders is the managing editor of science fiction-forward site io9.com

Stage listings

David Talbot
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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.

THEATER

OPENING

*Blackbird: Honoring a Century of Pansy Divas Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission; 786-9325, www.evezen.org. Opens Thurs/24, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sun/17, 8pm). Through July 10. The intimate Blackbird Funeral Parlour Speakeasy is somber-toned and deceptively hushed, complete with period furnishings, a see-through dressing room, softly flickering altar, and obligatory piano. Only a few moments into Seth Eisen’s exceptional one-man cabaret, however, and the place is alive and kicking: doleful aspects of the décor making ample room for a sly, vigorous, soulful performer and a completely unexpected journey through some vibrant underground queer history (backed by fellow Circo Zero alum Sean Feit’s sharp musical direction and breezy accompaniment, and Alanna Simone’s gently humorous and haunting video pieces). Your guide is 100-year-old Jean Marlin, author of the notorious 1930s Pansy Craze, 75 years dead and looking fabulous in tails, bold green cravat, dapper purple hankie and a topping of regal black plumage (costumer Jack Davis demonstrates a genius throughout for turning a shoestring budget into a G-string–supported extravaganza). A multifaceted performer with quick tongue, nimble steps, and hearty voice (giving life to an assortment of extraordinary songs), Eisen uses drag, dance, puppetry, and performance art techniques to give flight to worthy exotic blackbirds known and forgotten—drag queen Zen priest Tommy Issan Dorsey; sexually ambiguous Danny Kaye; Brazil’s inimitable Ney Matogrosso; the definitely outré Klaus Nomi; and disco treasure Sylvester, whose live rendition of the Beatles’ "Blackbird" at SF’s War Memorial Opera House is one of several standout moments in this rollicking and poignant act of resurrection, insurrection, and homage. (Avila)

Much Ado About Lebowski Cell Space, 2050 Bryant; www.primitivescrewheads.com. $20. Opens Thurs/24, 8 p.m. Runs Fri/25-Sun/27, July 24, 7pm (also July 9, 10, 16, 17 at Off Market Theater). Through July 24. SF IndieFest and the Primitive Screwheads present a live staged parody fusion of Shakespearean and Coen Brothers comedy, with White Russians served an hour before showtime.

Reading My Dad’s Porn and French Kissing the Dog The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Opens Thurs/24, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 17. The Marsh presents Cherry Zonkowski’s tour of suburban living rooms, crowded dungeons, and sex and artist party scenes.

BAY AREA

Shaker Chair Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear Avenue, Mtn View; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-30. Opens Fri/25, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (also July 10, 2pm; no perfomance July 4). Through July 11. Pear Avenue Theatre presents Adam Bock’s play about a middle-aged widow who applies Shaker philosophy to her lifestyle.

ONGOING

Abigail: The Salem Witch Trials Temple SF, 540 Howard; www.templesf.com. $10. July 8, 29, Aug 5, 12, 19, 26, 9pm. Through Aug 26. Buzz Productions, with Skycastle Music and Lunar Eclipse Records, presents an original rock opera based on the Salem witch trials.

All My Sons Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.ticketweb.com. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Actors Theatre performs Arthur Miller’s masterwork.

Boys Will Be Boys New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. What happens when you realize you have Gay Attention Deficit Disorder? This comedic musical aims to find out.

Die Walküre War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $15-360. Fri/25, June 30, 7pm. Through June 30. San Francisco Opera presents the second installment of Wagner’s Ring cycle, directed by Francesca Zambello.

"Durang Me!" Next Stage, 1620 Gough; 1-800-838-3006, www.custommade.org. $10-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (no show July 4). Through July 10. Christopher Durang’s The Actor’s Nightmare could just as easily be called The Accountant’s Nightmare, as befuddled Everyman and presumed non-actor George Spelvin (Eric O’ Kelly) attempts to navigate his way out of a confused rendition of Noel Coward’s "Private Lives" dressed as Prince Hamlet and menaced by a trashcan-bearing Beckett-arian (AJ Davenport). This traditional companion piece to Durang’s Catholic School send-up Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You references a Catholic boyhood several times, but it is the anxiety of the present moment that prevails, as the stage clears, and Spelvin is chased into a corner by an unforgiving spotlight to deliver his frantic last-ditch attempt at a soliloquy: his ABC’s. The titular Sister Mary Ignatius (AJ Davenport), by turns arctic and expansive, attempts to explain all, while periodically trotting out her star pupil Thomas (Cole Cloud) to recite catechism and spell eck-u-men-ickle for cookies. Davenport plays the pedantic side of Sister Mary with humorous vigor, but when a group of her former students drop by "to embarrass her" she doesn’t quite pull off embodying the ogress of their now-adult nightmares. Of her former students, it is probably Aloysius Benheim (Eric O’Kelly) who comes across as the most damaged by her tyranny, and not coincidentally, suffers the piece’s greatest humiliation. (Nicole Gluckstern)

La Fanciulla Del West War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $15-360. Thurs/24, Tues/29, 7:30pm; Sun/27, 2pm; July 2, 8pm. Through July 2. San Francisco Opera presents Puccini’s opera, with Deborah Voigt as Minnie.

Forever Never Comes Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-25. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Crowded Fire performs Enrique Urueta’s world premiere "psycho-Southern queer country dance tragedy."

Gutenberg! The Musical! Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.beardsbeardsbeards.com. $20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Beards Beards Beards: A Theatre Company presents a musical about two writers who scheme to create a Broadway musical about Johann Gutenberg.

*Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Thurs, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sun/27. On the principle that when you’ve got it you should really flaunt it, San Francisco’s Thrillpeddlers essay their second revival of a musical by the storied Cockettes. Hot Greeks, which premiered in midnight performances at the old Palace Theater in 1972, was the gleefully crazed cross-dressing troupe’s only other fully scripted musical besides, of course, Pearls Over Shanghai.

While not the Oresteia or anything, Hot Greeks is more than an excuse for a lot of louche, libidinous hilarity. Okay, not much more. But it is a knowing little romp — supported by some infectious songs courtesy of Martin Worman and Richard "Scrumbly" Koldewyn — wedding trashy high school romance with the trashy ancient Greece of Aristophanes and the Peloponnesian War. (Avila)

*How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Lost My Virginity SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Sun, 7pm. Through Sun/27. A natural born charmer and a comedic actor with hard-won training behind her, Aileen Clark wins over an audience within about ten seconds. But her stories (co-scripted by John Caldon and ably directed by Claire Rice) turn out to be just as solid: all of them loving, irreverent, and unfailingly hilarious autobiographical accounts of coming of age across three cultures. Born to a Nicaraguan mother and a Scottish father and raised principally in Brazil, Managua and San Francisco, Clark’s perfectly-pitched monologue comes liberally spiced with Spanish and Portuguese, sweetened by an affecting but never maudlin honesty, and stirred with a feisty humor clearly a lifetime in the making. As well paced and energetic as this Guerilla Rep and Ann Marie co-production is, it could probably be tightened further by shaving some 10 minutes off the 90-minute run time. Nonetheless, you are not likely to regret a minute of this frank and funny, wise and sassy visit to Aileen’s world. (Avila)

KML Goes Undercover Zeum Theater, 221 4th St, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-20. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 7pm, 10pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sun/27. Killing My Lobster returns with a series of comedic vignettes based on the theme of espionage.

Krapp’s Last Tape Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through July 3. Cutting Ball Theater remounts its strong recent production of Samuel Beckett’s hour-long solo play, featuring a full-fledged and satisfying turn by a hearty, slyly comic Paul Gerrior as the titular Krapp, reflecting on the fleeting sense of self recorded on reel-to-reel tapes over the course of a long life. Artistic director Rob Melrose approaches the material with supreme assurance and passionate but never stifling fidelity. David Sinaiko provides the recorded voice of the younger Krapp, expertly balancing a passion and unselfconscious pomposity that has Gerrior’s Krapp alternately bemused, euphoric, and wincing through one of Beckett’s most autobiographical and surprisingly affirming pieces. Melrose’s choice use of scenic elements, meanwhile, including the palpably solid 1950s-era tape machine, places Gerrior (suitably odd and natty in costumer Maggie Whitaker’s dapper vest, high-water trousers and white shoes) in a kind of communion with the reel and the real—an affecting and quietly unsettling relationship, pitched against an infinite blackness all around, that has Krapp at one point resting his head gently on the machine as he and the insubstantial voice of his younger self relive a moment of intimacy with a long-gone lover. (Avila)

Marga Gomez is Proud and Bothered New Conservatory Theater Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $18-40. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show Fri/25); Sun, 2pm. Through Sat/26. Gomez performs her GLAAD Media award-winning comedy.

The New Century New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; July 11, 2pm. Through July 11. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Paul Rudnick’s bill of short comedies.

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

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

Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show Marines’ Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter; 771-6900. $30-89. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/27. From somewhere before the Beatles and after Broadway "Beatlemania" comes this big band cigarettes-and-high-ball nightclub act, recreating the storied Vegas stage shenanigans of iconic actor-crooners Frank Sinatra (David DeCosta), Dean Martin (Tony Basile), and Sammy Davis Jr. (Doug Starks), and sidekick comedian Joey Bishop (Sandy Hackett). The band is all-pro and the songs sound great — DeCosta’s singing as Sinatra is uncanny, but all do very presentable renditions of signature songs and standards. Meanwhile, a lot of mincing about the stage and the drink cart meets with more mixed success, and I don’t just mean scotch and soda. The Rat Pack is pre-PC, of course, but the off-color humor, while no doubt historically sound, can be dully moronic. (Avila)

"Something C.O.O.L.: The Summer Cabaret Festival" Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; www.brownpapertickets.com. Free-$10. Mon-Tues, 7:30pm; Wed, 8pm. Through Sat/27. Cabaret singer Carly Ozard presents six diverse showcases (Mon-Tues nights) and hosts open mics (Wed nights) with professional performers.

*The Tosca Project American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary; 749-2ACT, www.act-sf.org. $15-87. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Wed, Sun, 2pm. Through Sat/27. Four years in the making, this ACT–SF Ballet collaboration unfurls a lushly romantic, whimsical pageant of San Francisco history through movement, character, mise en scène, and an irresistible cultural lens: the famed North Beach bar lending the project its setting and name. Co-created by ACT’s Carey Perloff and SFB choreographer Val Caniparoli, the storyline traipses over every iconic period since Prohibition—sometimes too cursorily but generally with vigor and a quietly gathering intoxication—meanwhile centering on three characters: the tragically lovelorn Italian bartender-owner (Jack Willis); a Russian émigrée and regular (Rachel Ticotin) who eventually inherits the establishment; and an African American musician (Gregory Wallace) arriving on the lamb, who becomes another permanent fixture of the place. Never far away either is the incarnation of the Bartender’s lost love, played by SFB’s enchanting Lorena Feijoo. Although the story is conveyed without dialogue, there are moments when words take the stage too—how could they not in Beat-era SF, especially with a neighbor in poet-publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti (played here by the consistently winning Peter Anderson). The truly rare treat, of course, is watching the dancers of SF Ballet—not least the radiant and commanding Sabina Allemann (who retired from SFB in 1999), with added power and charisma in key scenes from Pascal Molat—relatively up-close and personal, mingling persuasively with their formidable actor colleagues, enveloped in an exquisite stage design (courtesy of Douglas W. Schmidt, gorgeously lit by Robert Wierzel) and a moody soundscape (by Darron L West) featuring choice period songs. (Avila)

What Mama Said About Down There Our Little Theater, 287 Ellis; 820-3250, www.theatrebayarea.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through August 28. Writer-performer-activist Sia Amma presents this largely political, a bit clinical, inherently sexual, and utterly unforgettable performance piece.

BAY AREA

The Drawer Boy Marion E. Greene Black Box Theatre, 531 19th St, Oakl. www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 4. TheatreFIRST presents Michael Healey’s comedy about two aging farmers with a family secret.

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat/26, July 3, 24, 31, 8pm; Sun/27, July 18, 25, Aug 1, 7pm; July 2, 9, 16, 9pm. Through August 1. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

"Fireworks Festival" Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $25-35. Through July 3, showtimes vary. This performance festival includes work by John Leguizamo, David Sedaris (whose show is already sold out), Dan Hoyle, and Wes "Scoop" Nisker.

*In the Wake Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $13.50-71. Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm; no show Fri/25); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Sun/27. Brilliantly weaving the political and the personal, New York playwright Lisa Kron takes on the myth and mayhem of American exceptionalism through the prism of a compelling lefty smarty-pants named Ellen (Heidi Schreck) and her "alternative" family circle, as it slowly unravels during the first decade of the 21st century. From her modest Manhattan perch — shared with adoring, wise-cracking longtime boyfriend Danny (Carson Elrod) — Ellen rails against the ineptitude of the Democrats in the face of the rising Right and its season of havoc. But she’s already told the audience she has a problem with "blind spots," much like the country. Projections of headlines and sound bites, intermittently splayed across the fortified proscenium arch, locate the action at precise moments in the dreary political timeline of the last decade, beginning with the 2000 election coup that has put a damper on Thanksgiving festivities (despite inclusion of Pilgrim smocks). Her sister (Andrea Frankle) and sister’s wife (Danielle Skraastad) are there too, along with Ellen’s older friend Judy (Deidre O’Connell), a cranky, deceptively oblivious relief worker just back from a refugee camp in Africa. As time goes by, and Ellen turns to an open relationship with a woman filmmaker (Emily Donahoe), our protagonist’s bedrock assumptions about the natural order of things get sorely tested. Leigh Silverman directs a top-notch cast in a remarkably engaging mix of political dialogue and personal entanglements, written for the most part with stirring intelligence and incisive humor. If the play loses focus and momentum by the second act — despite a wonderfully charged scene between Ellen and Judy that is the play’s most memorable — its wit, real anger and constructive irreverence still make it too good to miss. (Avila)

Les Liasons Dangereuses Redwood Ampitheatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; (415) 251-1027, www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Thurs-Sun, 7:30pm; also Mon/28, July 7, 7:30pm. Through July 10. Porchlight Theatre Company presents a production of Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of the 1782 novel.

John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Wy, Orinda; (510) 548-9666, www.calshakes.org. $34-70. Tues-Thurs, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/26, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through Sun/27. Cal Shakes leads off its season with an original staging of John Steinbeck’s early story cycle, a collaboration with Word for Word theater company gracefully adapted by acclaimed San Francisco playwright Octavio Solis (Lydia, Ghosts of the River). Artistic director Jonathan Moscone directs a fine 11-actor cast in lively performances across a smoothly intertwining set of ten tales, all revolving around two specific households—one, the Munroe family, settled upon a notoriously "cursed" patch of land—in the central California valley that a Spanish explorer once dubbed "the pastures of heaven." Irony anyone? Steinbeck went for broke in the themes and taboos he touches upon here, from incest, madness, infanticide—he misses one or two, but not many. It’s sometimes somber yet rarely heavy going, however, with many lighter stories and situations in the mix, and director Moscone’s staging missing few opportunities for added humor along the way. At the same time, the stories are not equally compelling—the overly crowd-pleasing "song" story of two Mexican American sisters (Catherine Castellanos and Joanne Winter) who segue almost unconsciously from a failed restaurant venture into prostitution, for instance, is cute but surprisingly ho-hum. But if you lie back and let the play’s frontier landscape unfurl (as you do literally anyway in the hill-saddled Bruns Amphitheater), the evening has a dependable charm and several dramatic highlights—not the least of which features the powerful Rod Gnapp in the role of a man desperate to appear prosperous before his family and neighbors. (Avila)

Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/25, July 2, 9, 7pm; July 3, 5pm; July 11, 2pm. Through July 11. Ann Randolph’s comic solo show about an irreverent woman’s trip back to her childhood home in Ohio.

Opus Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $27-62. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sun/27. TheatreWorks performs Michael Hollinger’s drama, set in the world of chamber music.

Speech & Debate Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $34-55. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm, 7pm; Tues, 7pm. Through July 18. Aurora Theatre closes its 18th season with Stephen Karam’s comedy about three teen misfits connected to a small town sex scandal.

*Woody Guthrie’s American Song Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-54. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sun/27. Marin Theater Company presents director-adapter Peter Glazer’s graceful, dynamic staging of the life and times of Woody Guthrie using the famed folk singer’s own enduring words and music (impressively, rousingly orchestrated and arranged by Jeff Waxman). Traveling alternately hard, light, and stirringly through the 1930s and 1940s before leaping ahead to alight briefly on the present (which is never far, in fact, from any of the concerns of the much abused but resilient working people channeled so brilliantly in Guthrie’s social poetry), five charismatic cast members (Lisa Asher, Berwick Haynes, Sam Misner, Matt Mueller, Megan Pearl Smith) sing, act, and play their own instruments beautifully, backed by a smooth and irresistible band under multi-instrumentalist and musical director Tony Marcus. You don’t have to know a lick of Guthrie’s material to immediately understand its relevance and beauty in these cleverly staged set pieces, which are as humorous and crowd-pleasing as they are unapologetically damning and defiant of the rule of capital. For Guthrie fans, of course, this is a must. (Avila)

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

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Bathala Na! Stories of Mothers Moving Forward From the Philippines to Africa" Stage Werx Theater, 533 Sutter; 734-7903, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/25-Sat/26, 8pm. $10-15. Meldy Hernandez performs a one-woman show about the body, cancer, grief, and the life-giving beat of ancestral drums.

"Dark Horse Cabaret" Cafe Du Nord, 2170 Market; 861-5016, www.cafedunord.com. Sun/24, 8pm. A homoerotic and homoneurotic cabaret show, with Planet Booty, the Ethel Merman Experience, Erika Von Volkyrie, DJ Steve Fabus and others..

"The Dresses/Objects Project" Z Space at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida; 626-0453, www.zspace.org. Fri/25-Sat/26, 7:30pm. Free (donations accepted) Erin Mei-Ling Stuart and EmSpace Dance perform in conjunction with an interdisciplinary art installation by Katrina Rodabaugh.

Will Franken Purple Onion, 140 Columbus; 956-1563, www.caffemacaroni.com. Thurs/24, 8pm. $10. The comedian performs at the famous comic’s venue.

Happy Forever: Life and Death of an Italian Cat Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission; 401-7987, www.spygirlfriday.com. Sat/26, 7, 8, and 9pm. $6 Spy Emerson presents a dark comedy about human exploration.

Oni Dance CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; 626-6060, www.onidance.org. Fri/25-Sat/26, 8pm. $16-20. The ten-member Los Angeles dance company led by Maria Gillespie presents Exquisite.Corpse and Wasteland (arrival).

"Sound of Fabulous" Mission High School, 3750 18th St; (800) 838-3006, www.sfprideconcert.org. Thurs/24-Fri/25, 8pm. $15-30. A performance by the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco and the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band.

Thai Rivera and Marga Gomez LGBT Center, Rainbow Room, 1800 Market; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/25, 8pm. $15. The comedians perform with special guests Casey Lee and Ricky Luna.

"San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival" Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon; 474-3914, www.worldartswest.org. Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 8pm). Through June 27. $22-44. Nearly 600 Bay Area performers representing 20 cultures participate in this 32nd annual festival.

"WHORE! Magazine Launches at the Cat’s Pajamas" Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St; 647-2888, www.whoremagazine.com. Mon/28, 8pm. Free. The first issue of the women’s quarterly publication is celelbrated with performances by Le Cancan Bijou, Monique Jenkinson, Cameron McHenry, kamp Camille, Dusty Horn, Mick Mize, Gabrielle Ekedal and Agnes Martin, and Baruch Porras-Hernandez.

BAY AREA

"An Evening with the Groundlings" The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Alston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Wed/23, 7:30pm. $15-35. The Marsh presents four short performance pieces addressing some pressing social issues, including work by Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris, Mark McGoldrick and Paul Sussman.

Music listings

David Talbot
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0

Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blue Rodeo, Justin Rutledge Independent. 8pm, $25.

“HomoEvolution” El Rio. 8pm. With Foxxjazell, Bry’Nt, Benni E, Drew Mason, and Sgt. Sass.

Porkchop Express, Hollyfields, Emily Zisman and Ryan Avery Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Rockin Jake Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, Sistas in the Pit, Valerie Orth Band Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Wisdom Tooth, Little Teeth, Pineapple Explode Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THURSDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blind Willies Bollyhood Café. 8:30pm, $7.

Brothers Comatose, Tiny Television, Allofasudden Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $45.

Alan Iglesias Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16.

Living With Lions, Spires, Young Generals, Second to Last Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Luccabrazzi, MC Meathook and the Vital Organs Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

Gretchen Phillips, Phranc El Rio. 9pm, $8-15.

Radar Brothers, Man/Miracle, Mist and Mast Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band, Carolina Chocolate Drops Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Tornado Rider, Audiodub, Conscious Souls, Oola Rocksteady Slim’s. 9pm, $14.

Waifs, Mike Gunther Independent. 8pm, $30.

Zodiac Death Valley, Drug Wars, Complaints Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass and Old-time Jam Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Ian McFeron, Alisa Milner Duboce Park Café, 2 Sanchez, SF; (415) 621-1108. 7:30pm, free.

Tipsy House Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-7. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afro-tropical, samba, and funk.

Bad Reputation Lexington Club. 9pm, free. Lose that good girl attitude at this Pride kickoff party with DJs Jenna Riot and Dee Dee Crocodile.

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

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

Gigantic Beauty Bar. 9pm, free. With DJs Eli Glad, Greg J, and White Mike spinning indie, rock, disco, and soul.

Gold Queers in the Night 111 Minna Gallery. 9pm, $7. Combining three dirty underground queer dance parties into one pride event with DJs Black, Bunnystyle, davO, Durt, Pink Lightning, and Rapid Fire.

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

Gymnasium Matador, 10 Sixth St, SF; (415) 863-4629. 9pm, free. With DJ Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, hip hop, and disco.

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

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

Meat DNA Lounge. 9:30pm-3am, $2-5. Industrial with BaconMonkey, Netik, Stats, and Shadow Angel.

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

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

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

Solid Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, free. With DJs Daddy Rolo and Tesfa spinning roots, reggae, dancehall, soca, and mashups.

FRIDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Lou Barlow, Sarah Jaffe Café du Nord. 9pm, $14.

Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $45.

Entrance Band, Growlers Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $12.

Evolfo Doofeht, Vernon “Ice” Black, Cudnz, Candlespit Collective Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Heavy, DJ Harry Duncan Warfield. 9pm, $27.

Judgement Day, Stomacher Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; http://snobtheater.tumblr.com. 10pm, $10. With comedians Red Scott, Melanie O’ Brien, Alex Koll, and DJ Real.

Little Black Bats, Prognosis Negative, Video Wine Party Walgreen’s Parking Lot, 4122 18th St, SF; gawksf@yahoo.com. 7pm, free.

Minipop, Trophy Fire, Chasing Kings Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $10.

Pleasure Kills, Blank Stares, Glitter Wizard Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Soul of John Black Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Still Time, Lucas Ohio and the Shamblers, Dustbowl Revival Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $12-14.

“Trans March After Party” Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. Original Plumbing hosts performances by Katastrophe, La Monistat, Glenn Maria, and more.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

Ben Darwish Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-15.

Marina Teich Group Savanna Jazz, 2937 Mission, SF; (415) 285-3369. 7:30pm, $8.

Meshell Ndegeocello Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $22-28. Playing Gil Scott-Heron covers.

Trumpetsupergroup Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum, SF; www.trumpetsupergroup.com. 8pm, $5-10.

Will Bernard Trio with Robert Walter and Simon Lott Boom Boom Rom. 9:30pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Fishtank Ensemble Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 9pm, $10. With tribal fusion dancer Rachel Brice.

Marina LaValle Coda. 10pm, $10.

Wrenboys Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Art Attack Supperclub. 9pm, $20. With DJs Lady Kier and Pepperspray.

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

Chunkhouse DNA Lounge. 9pm, $15-20. House with Ted Eiel.

DJ Morse Code Vessel. 9:30pm, $20.

Episco Disco Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF; (415) 869-7817. 7pm, free. With DJs Broker/Dealer and Disco Shawn, a live performance by Chelsea Wolfe, and art by Oliver DiCicco.

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

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

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

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

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

Gymnasium Stud. 10pm, $5. With DJs Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, disco, rap, and 90s dance and featuring performers, gymnastics, jump rope, drink specials, and more.

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

House of Voodoo Medici Lounge, 299 9th St., SF; (415) 501-9162. 9pm, $5. With DJs voodoo, Purgatory, and Ms. Samantha spinning goth, industrial, deathrock, eighties, and more.

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

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

Psychedelic Radio Club Six. 9pm, $7. With DJs Kial, Tom No Thing, Megalodon, and Zapruderpedro spinning dubstep, reggae, and electro.

Road to Ruin Lexington Club. 9pm, free. A Trans March after party with DJ Rapid Fire spinning hip hop, pop, rock, and top40.

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

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

SATURDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Concrete Blonde, Flametal Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $35.

Steve Earle Great American Music Hall. 7pm, $36.

Finest Dearest, Sterling Says Epicenter Café, 764 Harrison, SF; www.epicentercafe.com. 7pm, free.

Hightower, Kingdom of Magic, Razorhoof Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Robert Earle Keen, Elliot Randall and the Deadman Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Bill Kirchen Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; (415) 831-1200. 2pm, free.

MC Trachiotomy Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, free.

Myonics, Mystery Lights, Wax Idols, Colbalt Cranes Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Obsessor, Cwachemoe, Moss Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

“Rock and Sox” Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 10pm. Fundraising benefit for the Dana-Farber Institute’s Jimmy Fund, with the Canver Sucks Band.

*Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Four Year Bender, T and A Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Earl Thomas and the Blues Ambassadors Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

C U Next Weekend, Lady Nerd, Kaptain Harris Club Six. 9pm, $5. Warped Tour after party.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lily Alunan Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

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

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

Joan Crowe Trio Enrico’s Sidewalk Café, 504 Broadway, SF; (415) 982-6223. 8pm.

Meshell Ndegeocello Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $28. Playing Gil Scott-Heron covers.

Will Bernard Trio with Robert Walter and Simon Lott Boom Boom Rom. 9:30pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

An Evening of Song Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez, SF; (415) 454-5238. 7:30pm, $17.

“Jai Ho” Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum, Oakl.; (510) 569-2121. 7:30pm, $50-$150. A.R. Rahman in concert.

Rattle Cans Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Thank You Julius, Brothers Amor, Maria “Songbird” Remos, DJ Chief Boima, Nothing Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

DANCE CLUBS

Barracuda 111 Minna. 9pm, $5-10. Eclectic 80s music with Djs Damon, Phillie Ocean, and Javier, plus free 80s hair and make-up by professional stylists.

Blowoff Slim’s. 10pm, $15-20. With DJs Bob Mould and Rich Morel.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Lady Gaga vs. Madonna mash-ups with Adrian and Mysterious D.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10. Dyke March after party.

Colombia y Panama Coda. 10pm, $5. Latin with DJs Beto, Vinnie Esparza, and Guillermo.

4OneFunktion Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Hip-hop with FAME, Hawthorne Headhunters, DJ Spair, DJ Strategy, DJ B. Cause, Mista B, and Aron.

Go Bang! Deco SF, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025. 9pm, $5. Recreating 70’s/80’s disco nightlife with DJs Tres Lingerie, Steve Fabus, Nicky B., and special guests Jason Kendig and Marcelino Andrade.

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

Kiss Me Deadly Lexington Club. 9pm, free. Dyke March after party with DJ Bunnystyle.

KO $3 Dance Party Knockout. 8pm, $3. Eclectic tunes with Paul Paul, dX the Funky Gran Paw, and DJ Deadbeat.

Love and Happiness Som. 10pm, $15. With DJs David Harness and Ruben Mancias.

Mini-Vacay Milk Bar. 10pm, $5-$10. Beach gear encouraged at this Risky Bizness DJ crew summer jam party featuring performances by PFunk and C-Plus.

Reggae Gold Club Six. 9pm, $15. With DJs Daddy Rolo, Polo Mo’qz, Serg, and Jah Yzer spinning dancehall and reggae. Army attire themed.

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

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

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

SUNDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Backstreet Boys, Mindless Behavior Warfield. 8pm, $45-65.

“Blue Bear School of Music Showcase” Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-20.

*Danzig, All Shall Perish, Toxic Holocaust Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $32.

Dustbowl Revival, Anna Ash, Bonnie Doom Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Red Hot Blues Ambassadors Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

*Saint Vitus, Hammers of Misfortune, Walken, Stone Axe DNA Lounge. 7:30pm, $17-20.

*Ty Segall, Grass Widow, Sonny and the Sunsets, Baths Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $10.

*Zoroaster, Black Tusk, Dark Castle, Serpent Crown, DJ Rob Metal Thee Parkside. 9pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Kathleen Grace Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-15.

Max Weinberg Big Band Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-25.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Completely Unmarketable Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Golddiggers, Misisipi Rider, DJ Mr. Goodtimes Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Hapa and the Academy of Hawaiian Arts Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Ave at Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free.

Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three, Frank Fairfield Amnesia. 9pm, $10.

Autumn Rhodes, Jeff Pearson, Glen Farr Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Body Rock Temple Bar, 600 Polk, SF; (415) 931-5196. 11am-6pm, free. A showcase of queer talent and DJ sets.

Continental Breakfast Lexington Club. 2pm, free. Soul music and breakfast goodies with DJ Katie Duck.

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with Vinnie Esparza and Irie Dole.

45 Club Knockout. 10pm. Funky soul with dX the Funky Gran Paw, Dirty Dishes, and English Steve.

Fresh Ruby Skye. 6pm, $25. With DJ Wayne G.

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

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

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

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

LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad, Kuze and MC Child Independent. 9pm, $23.

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

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

Too Fast For Love Lexington Club. 9pm, free. With DJ Campbell spinning dirty jams, top40, and more.

MONDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Backstreet Boys, Mindless Behavior Warfield. 8pm, $45-65.

“Blue Bear School of Music Showcase” Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-20.

Eagle Winged Palace, Paula Frazer, Killbossa, These Hills of Gold Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Every Avenue, Sing It Loud, Secret Handshake, There For Tomorrow Slim’s. 7:30pm, $14-16.

Lemuria, Hard Girls, Beat the Oak Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $8.

MOTO, Midnight Creeps, Sharp Objects, Spurts Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $6.

Sally Seltmann, Gemma Ray, Old-Fashioned Way Rickshaw Stop. 7pm, $12.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Musik for Your Teeth Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Soul cookin’ happy hour tunes with DJ Antonino Musco.

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

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

TUESDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

CocoRosie, Cibelle Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $24.

Greg Ashley, Yea Ming, Brian Glaze Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

“Blue Bear School of Music Showcase” Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-20.

Buxter Hoot’n, Mark Matos and Os Beaches Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Frozen in Amber, Disemballerina, Wild Hum Knockout. 6pm, $6.

*Harlem, Hunx and His Punx Independent. 8pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. “Stump the Wizard” with DJs What’s His Fuck and the Wizard.

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

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

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

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

OUR 2010 HOT PINK LIST

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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OUR 2010 HOT PINK LIST

Each year for Pride season, we highlight members of the Bay Area LGBTQ community who turn our heads, inspire us, and make us feel proud. Here’s this year’s list, with their ideas for the queer future. To read more visionary thoughts from queer artists, leaders, and activists on what lies ahead for the community, click here. For our Pride listings, where you can catch many of the folks below in action, click here. (Marke B.)

Catch Courtney’s red-hot Queerly Beloved after-Pride party on Sun/27 (see our Pride listings for info.)

Check out our Pride listings for more info about all the Original Plumbing events!





Alerts

David Talbot
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0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23

Remembering torture victims


Commemorate U.N.-enacted International Day in Support of Victims of Torture at this screening of The Response, a courtroom drama based on the transcripts of the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals. Featuring guest speakers from UCSF and SF State, members of Survivors International, Amnesty International, and Health Professionals Against Torture.

6 p.m., free

Amnesty International SF Office, Suite 210

350 Sansome, SF

(415) 546-2080

Water bond happy hour


Join the Food and Water Watch team in helping to get voters to reject the California water bond on the November ballot. Meet others who care about the issues and discuss a sustainable water future for California and how water issues effect us all. Raffles of stainless steel water bottles benefit Food and Water Watch, a local nonprofit corporate accountability organization.

6 p.m., free

Elixir Bar

3200 16th St., SF

www.foodandwaterwatch.org

THURSDAY, JUNE 24

Radically queer


Radical Women celebrates LGBTIQ month with a panel discussion titled "Queer Radicals: Strategies for Our Movement." Queer and transgender activists will discuss how to build a militant movement for LGBT liberation. Pre-discussion buffet with vegetarian options available at 6:15 p.m. for $7.50. Call for information about childcare.

7 p.m., free

New Valencia Hall

Suite 202

625 Larkin, SF

(415) 864-1278

SATURDAY, JUNE 26

Protest Big Oil


Join thousands for a beach lie-in to create a "slash oil" image that will be photographed from a helicopter. Arrive no later than 10:30 a.m. to participate. Attendees will receive an overhead postcard of the event. Then at noon, join Hands Across the Sand, an international statement on protecting coastlines from oil pollution. Carpooling, biking, or taking public transit to the events is highly encouraged.

10 a.m.; free, donations accepted

Ocean Beach

1000 Great Highway, SF

www.slashoil.blogspot.com

www.handsacrossthesand.org

SUNDAY, JUNE 27

Have a good cry


Attend this "cry-in" against the commercialization and corporate sponsorship of the Gay Pride festival. Wear your most morbidly gothic clothing, bring your favorite sad songs, and share your best morose attitude with other queer people and allies eulogizing the demise of the grassroots queer community.

2 p.m., free

San Francisco LGBT Center

1800 Market, SF

www.gayshamesf.org

MONDAY, JUNE 28

Honduras resistance


Watch three videos presented by the Bay Area Latin America Solidarity Coalition (BALASC) on the 2009 military coup in Honduras. Proceeds benefit the Popular Resistance in Honduras.

8 p.m., $6

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

www.balasc.org

A tale of animal liberation


Hear activist and former prisoner Andy Stepanian tell how he stood up to one of the world’s largest contract animal testing labs, was charged with terrorism, and served three years in federal prison.

7 p.m., free

Station 40

3030B 16th St., SF

www.sparrowmedia.net

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot
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Editor’s Notes

marke@sfbg.com

The official theme for Pride this year is “40 and Fabulous.” So let’s all grab an organic cocktail and strap ourselves in for a good ol’-fashioned midlife crisis!

Some of us have already had some practice. Many gays long ago traded in cracked and hectoring first wife Madonna for trophy floozy Lady Gaga, raced around town in those sleek Miata MX-5 convertibles, and reached for the HyperGain. (Don’t get me started on lesbians and Justin Bieber here.)

But for queers of a more radical bent, it’s an opportunity to take stock of the past and wonder about the future — despite the fact that 40 is the new 20, at least in online marketing campaigns. Branding, darling, branding.

Or maybe that’s boring. Yes, we could lament the commercialization of Pride and kvetch that all our resources have been poured into trying to secure property rights through state-sanctioned social contracts and the chance to invade the wrong country, causing the unnecessary deaths of thousands. We could be awestruck by the amazing power and inspiration of our queer youth, despite the fact that hundreds of them become homeless every year. We could honor and celebrate the heroism of our elders, even while they’re pushed to the margins and out of their apartments.

But doing all that means sitting on our collective asses. Isn’t the whole point of a midlife crisis to change everything before it’s too late? Maybe, due to political expediency and because it makes us more acceptable to society, we’ve allowed queerness to become defined as something we are, rather than something we do. I’m not saying many of us aren’t born “that way” (or denying the social legitimacy that fact, apparently, confers). But what the hell are we doing? Fine. We’re fabulous. Now let’s fix things.

 

Quick Lit: June 16-June 22

David Talbot
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Quick Lit: June 16-June 22

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

Voices of James Joyce, Fungi-Inspired Poems, The Queer Art of Failure, well read women, and more.

Wednesday, June 16

“The Voices of James Joyce”
It’s the 9th annual Bloomsday Celebration, an evening of readings of old and new favorites from Joyce’s Ulysses and Dubliners with traditional song and music. Performances by actors Robert Ayres, Bruce Bierman, Renee Gibbons, Oonagh Kavanagh, Laura Sheppard, and Maurice Wren.
7 p.m., $12
Mechanics’ Institute
57 Post, SF
(415) 393-0100
www.milibrary.org

Thursday, June 17

Decomposition
Celebrate mushrooms in poetry at this reading from the new anthology, Decomposition: Fungi-Inspired Poems, a collection of classic and comtemporary mushroom poems.
7 p.m., free
Ecology Center Store
2530 San Pablo, Berk.
(510) 548-3402

InsideStorytime Legends
Enjoy readings from Christina Sunley, author of The Tricking of Freya, Anne Finger, author of Call Me Ahab, Nicholas Nicastro, author of Antigone’s Wake, and others.
6:30 p.m., $3-$5 sliding scale
Café Royale
800 Post, SF
(415) 505-0869
www.insidestorytime.com

Lee Kravitz
The former editor of Parade presents this memoir about his mid-life journey to tie up loose ends titled, Unfinished Business: One Man’s Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things.
7:30 p.m., free
Books Inc. Alameda
1344 Park, Alameda
(510) 522-2226

Eric Poole
Poole will read from his new memoir about his childhood in the Midwest in the 1970s, Where’s My Wand.
7:30 p.m., free
Books Inc.
2275 Market, SF
(415) 864-6777

“The Value of Stuff”
Attend this unique conversation with Anne Leonard, author of the book and popular movie The Story of Stuff, and Raj Patel, author of The Value of Nothing.
7 p.m., $10-$20 suggested donation
The David Browner Center
2150 Allston, Berk.
http://earthisland.org/events/stuff

Friday, June 18

The Madonnas of Echo Park
Author Brando Skyhorse gives voice to the Mexican-American community of Echo Park, CA.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. SF Opera Plaza
601 Van Ness, SF
(415) 776-1111

The Velvet Rage
Popular psychologist and author Alan Downs reads from his ground breaking new book.
7:30 p.m., free
Books Inc. Castro
2275 Market, SF
(415) 864-6777

Saturday, June 19

Backseat Saints
Joshilyn Jackson presents this novel full of sly wit and off-kilter characters.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

The Daddy Shift
Celebrate Father’s Day early at this discussion and reading with author Jeremy Adam Smith of his new book, The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared Parenting Are Transforming the American Family. Smith with also be joined by authors Jeff Gillenkirk and Mike Adamick.
5 p.m., free
The Green Arcade
1680 Market, SF
(415) 431-6800

Watermark
Meet author Vanitha Sankaran at this reading and signing of her new book about the mute daughter of a papermaker in a small French village in 1320.
2 p.m., free
Borders
200 King, SF
(415) 357-9931

Monday, June 21

Burning Wire
Jeffery Deaver presents his newest Lincoln Rhyme novel, about the brilliant criminologist and his partner.
7:30 p.m., free
Books Inc. Alameda
1344 Park, Alameda
(510) 522-2226

Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan brings us a book about time, survival, and the sparks ignited by colliding destinies.
7:30 p.m., free
Books Inc. Marina
2251 Chestnut, SF
(415) 931-3633

Well-Read Lives
Author Barbara Sicherman will read and discuss her new book Well-Read Lives: How books inspired a generation of American Women.
5:30 p.m., free
University Press Books
2430 Bancroft, Berk.
(510) 548-0585

Women, Food, and God
Geneen Roth talks about overeating and the underlying reasons for using food as an emotional buffer.
7:30 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

Tuesday, June 22

Face to Face: Children of the AIDS crisis in Africa
View a slideshow about the AIDS crisis in Africa with authors Ruthann Richter and Karen Ande. Co-sponsored by the Orphan Support League and in conjunction with a local gallery.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

“Sizzle!”
Enjoy this month’s enstallment of  Femina Potens’ literary series
“The Queer Art of Failure.” Featuring Jack Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity, providing his unique perspective on Genderqueer life.
8 p.m., $10
Femina Potens Art Gallery
2199 Market, SF
http://feminapotens.org

Pullin’ Pork for Pride

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Join the Guardian for the 6th Annual Queer Pride Happy Hour
Pullin’ Pork!

Wednesday, June 23rd from 6-9PM

Pilsner Inn: 225 Church Street, San Francisco

No cover! Fun Games & Prizes! Ice cold beers specials! Free pulled pork sandwiches by Funknchunk.com & Drewes Bro. Meat! Bun-shaking beats by DJ Chilli Dog!

Thank you to our sponsors:
Drewes Bro Meat, Funk N Chunk, Good Vibrations, & POP Chips.

Deep red bells

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Deep red bells

A few months ago, Impact Theater premiered Enrique Urueta’s Learn to Be Latina, a raucous satire of market-driven multiculturalism that pivoted on the ethnic dos-and-don’ts of the music industry. That production only partly prepares one for Crowded Fire’s premiere of the Bay Area playwright’s latest effort, Forever Never Comes. There’s a notable strain here of the effervescent humor that propelled Latina (beginning with Forever ‘s blithe subtitle, A Psycho-Southern Queer Country Dance Tragedy), as well as a similar concern with the trials of cultural and sexual identity, familial roots, and the will to be oneself. But Forever is a darker, more complex story, a working-class gothic that draws inspiration from Urueta’s own background as a gay Latino growing up in a small Virginia town. But if the play’s reach is admirably wider, its focus is disappointingly fuzzier.

Its central character is Sandra (Marilet Martinez), a young Latina burdened with guilt after the suicide of her gay brother Ricardo (Shoresh Alaudini), and living again in semirural South Boston, Va., with her sad, widowed mother (Carla Pantoja) whose first language is somewhat ominously slipping away from her like her disintegrating family.

Sandra, stalked by a mysterious demon named the Fox Confessor (Lawrence Radecker), “has a debt to pay” associated with feelings of culpability for her brother’s death, and Fox Confessor is keen to collect it, haunting her dreams (including in several ghostly folk dance sequences) and menacing her small circle of friends and loved ones. Although the other characters do not see him, we witness this mischievous, brooding underworld figure alternately pacing the stage or revealed, courtesy of Marilee Talkington’s eerie video design, in isolated “snapshots” of the action that appear projected onto a screen at the back.

While running from what seems like the mythological incarnation of her grief-stricken conscience, Sandra reconnects hesitantly with ex-girlfriend Deborah, now called Dylan (a compelling Kathryn Zdan). A transgender preop bent on escape to San Francisco, Dylan is back in town to visit her pregnant unwed sis, Beth Ann (Marissa Keltie), on the eve of their parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. Dylan remains smitten with Sandra. Sandra, however, seems almost as uncomfortable with Dylan’s physical transformation as Dylan’s mother (Michele Levy), a compulsively chatty, addled woman stunned into a rare moment of silence by the unexpected arrival of her one-time daughter.

Beth Ann, meanwhile, negotiates life with her oddball family; haunted best friend Sandra; and abusive, domineering boyfriend Hunter (a solid Daniel Petzold) while confining herself to soda pop at the local watering hole and doing her best not to smoke another Virginia Slim. Soon a tragic accident — if it is an accident and not the handiwork of the increasingly impatient Fox Confessor — throws everyone off-balance, and Dylan and Sandra back into each other’s arms, while setting up a parallel between two grief-stricken households and their contrasting crises of identity and unity. As Fox Confessor stirs up more and more trouble, the way forward remains unclear, multiple possible endings hovering over the action thanks to an out-of-sequence scene in which Sandra and Dylan flee for the West Coast in a blood-stained car.

Sandra and Dylan’s relationship adds momentum to the story, which otherwise tends to dissipate among its various subplots. Ironically, the central issue of Sandra’s guilt and her debt to Fox Confessor lacks the requisite poignancy and urgency, at least partly because there’s little sense of a relationship between Sandra and her deceased brother (who has only a flickering afterworld presence here, despite a key intervention near the end). The only hint of a tangible sibling connection comes when Sandra, in one of the more comical moments, repeats Ricardo’s detailed impressions of San Francisco to Dylan, at length and seemingly verbatim.

Director Mary Guzmán (who also helmed Learn to Be Latina) gets some nice performances across a generally strong cast. But the staging — around Emily Greene’s elegantly elemental thrust stage, complete with intermittent sheets of rain heralding Fox Confessor’s serious mischief — can be lackluster. The dose of underworld dosey doe, for example, proves sluggish and repetitive, despite sound designer Colin Trevor’s steady injections of the gorgeously moody songs of Neko Case. In the end, the play’s defiantly romantic spirit has charm, but Forever Never Comes leaves too much hanging.

FOREVER NEVER COMES

Wed-Sat, 8 p.m. (through June 26), $10–$30

Boxcar Playhouse

505 Natoma, SF

(800) 838-3006

www.boxcartheatre.org

 

Dear John

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Dear John

arts@sfbg.com

HAIRY EYEBALL What does it mean to call John Waters’ art “bad”? The question is hard to shake while surveying “Rush,” the filmmaker and part-time San Francisco resident’s fourth show at Rena Bransten Gallery. It’s tricky with Waters, whose creative practice has always exulted in its bad taste. He would probably respond to my query with a knowing smile.

Time has certainly been on his side. What was once reviled someday becomes celebrated, and so even Waters’ most extreme examples of cinematic filth are now part of the cultural canon. In his post-Hairspray crossover years, Waters has settled into the role of practiced raconteur, having whittled his biographical anecdotes and wry observations into a recombinant set of talking points.

This stand-up-like approach has informed his visual art as well. Waters’ early stabs at photography — horizontally grouped freeze-frames from Hollywood classics, obscure gems, and gay porn, all shot from the television screen — riffed on the innate humor of their subjects, further underscoring the awkwardness of each pause through canny juxtaposition.

The photo-collages in “Rush” are more aggressively puerile. Less documents of the chance encounter between a TV set and a camera, they offer up a series of crudely Photoshopped one-liners: a bevy of Hollywood royalty are given hairlips; Charlton Heston as Moses holds a can of soda; Audrey Hepburn’s swan-like neck is covered in monstrous hickeys.

The sharper collages — like the series of characters lying in state — elicit a chuckle. The dumber ones recall in their approach Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Gottfried Helnwein’s frequently copied, cheesy Hollywood riff on Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. Again, I sense Waters would be just as proud having his work compared to Helnwein’s as he would to his more obvious precedents in business and in art: Koons and Warhol.

Instead of cardboard Brillo boxes, Waters — or, one presumes, a workshop — has fabricated bigger-than-life versions of an ant trap, a spilled bottle of Rush-brand “liquid incense” (from which the show takes its name), and a tub of the exorbitantly priced facial cream La Mer. There’s also an Ike Turner doll, posed on bended knee, holding a smaller marionette of Tina Turner, called “Control.”.

The sculptures are by far the smartest works in the show — gaudy, oversized lawn ornaments to hucksterism, the fleeting nature of pleasure, and the futile postponement of time’s onward creep through conspicuous consumption. In short, they are monuments to the follies and vanities of the art world itself, which, judging by the show’s price list, is willing to pay top dollar for a spanking from John Waters.

For those of us who are simply content with our dog-eared copies of Shock Value and our Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living DVDs, “Rush” is too often like that overturned bottle of poppers: all flash but no high.

 

TRASH HUMPING

While in 77 Geary, head over to Marx & Zavattero for a different but no less trashy example of queer sensibility. James Gobel’s yarn, felt, and acrylic paintings construct a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy camp for bears in which hirsute and chubby fanboys do their best Jem impressions in truly outrageous color combinations. More interesting are Gobel’s “couture beanbags,” whose doughy amorphousness and “designer” plaid covers evoke the physicality and dress of his painted subjects in a far more tactile manner that’s as inviting as it is unsettling. Gobel understands that with subcultures, as with lovers, snuggling can sometimes turn to smothering.

RUSH

Through July 10, free

Rena Bransten

77 Geary, SF

(415) 982-3292

www.renabranstengallery.com

I GET WHAT I WANT, & ALWAYS GET IT AGAIN!

Through July 17, free

Marx & Zavattero

77 Geary, SF

(415) 627-9111

www.marxzav.com

Our Weekly Picks: June 16-22, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

WEDNESDAY 16

THEATER/DANCE

The Tosca Project

American Conservatory Theater artistic director Carey Perloff and San Francisco Ballet choreographer Val Caniparoli have teamed up with an all-star cast of ACT actors and San Francisco Ballet principal dancers (Lorena Feijoo, Pascal Molat, and Sabina Allemann) to bring theater and dance to one stage. Tracing the history of SF’s famous Tosca Café, The Tosca Project at ACT journeys through the love, loss, and popular dances of the past century to a soundtrack (featuring everything from Stravinsky to Hendrix) as diverse as the café’s ever-changing clientele. (Katie Gaydos)

Through June 27

Tues.–Sat., 8 p.m. (also Wed. and Sat., 2 p.m.); Sun, 2 p.m., $15–$85

American Conservatory Theater

415 Geary, SF

(415) 749-2228

www.act-sf.org/0910/tosca/index

THURSDAY 17

PERFORMANCE

Fresh Meat Festival

It’s that time again when Sean Dorsey brings tranny and queer performers for a love feast of dance, humor, music theater, and just about any other form of performance you could want. Most remarkable perhaps is how the Fresh Meat Festival — a tiny, local event only a few years ago — has grown into a national forum for often very polished performers who stick their necks out in every direction. Part of the festival’s fun is people-watching; some audience members’ get-ups nearly rival what’s seen on stage. Highlights from the lineup include world premieres of Dorsey’s take on Craigslist’s Missed Connections, Annie Danger’s media-style life coaching session, and SoliRose’s music-theater reflections about life in the Middle East. (Rita Felciano)

Thurs/17-Sat/19, 8 p.m.; Sun/20, 7 p.m., $17–$20

Z Space @ Theater Artaud

450 Florida, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

MUSIC

U.S. Bombs

Boasting one of the most unpredictable, energetic, and enthralling bandleader of any punk band ever to set foot in front of an audience, U.S. Bombs has cultivated an incendiary reputation thanks to singer, legendary skateboarder, and all-around “master of disaster,” Duane Peters. Combining sounds culled from old school influences like the Clash and mixing them with the raw, adrenaline-pumping attitude needed while attacking a half-pipe, the band’s lineup has gone through several variations. But no matter which members of punk rock royalty he has behind him, Peters is guaranteed to steal the spotlight and make for a show you won’t likely soon forget. (Sean McCourt)

With the Forgotten, Druglords of the Avenues, and Cunt Sparrer

8 p.m., $14

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

EVENT

Decomposition reading

It’s sometimes said that, like pop songs, all good poems are ultimately about either love or death. Instinctively, I think most of us know this to be incorrect. Sometimes, though, we need a little reminder, which is where events like this one come in handy. Decomposition is an anthology of fungi-themed poetry from throughout the ages — apparently, many of America’s most seminal wordsmiths, including Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson, drew tremendous inspiration from the lowly mushroom (and no, not like that). Leading this tour of verse’s dark, dewy reaches will be editor Kelly Chadwick and poet Charlotte Innes. (Zach Ritter)

7–9 p.m., free

Ecology Center Store

2530 San Pablo, Berk.

(510) 548-3402

www.ecologycenter.org

FRIDAY 18

DANCE

Great Integration: A Chamber Hip-Hop Opera

By calling Great Integration — an allegory about the end of times — a hip-hop opera, choreographer Raissa Simpson and composer-pianist JooWan Kim may be on to something. Hip-hop is music, it’s dance, it’s poetry, and above all it’s a way of being. It means living on the edge, on unstable ground and embracing the subversive. Longtime East Bay activist and Integration contributor MC Kirby Dominant can attest to that. As far as the opera part is concerned, the Chinese and the Italians discovered centuries ago that opera is a messy, all-encompassing form of theater splendidly suited for big topics. Sounds just about right for all aspects of Integration. On opening night, jazz vocalist Christopher Nicholas joins Kim’s Ensemble Mik Nawooj and Simpson’s Push Dance Company. (Felciano)

Fri/18–Sat/19, 8 p.m., $15–$25

ODC Commons

351 Shotwell, SF

(415) 863-9834

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/104653

MUSIC

QM

Do you like hip-hop? Do you like cheap booze? Get your ass down to Hotel Utah for a stiff double dose of both and party like your parents are outta town. Local rapper QM of the Rec-League, self-described as “your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper to drink with,” is finally releasing his latest album, Happy Hour, and is throwing his own happy hour to celebrate. QM’s clever punch lines and West Coast sound may not change your political views, but they just might leave you hung over. Throw in $1 PBRs and Happy Hour grab bags filled with the album, a beer koozie, and other surprises, and Hotel Utah’s guaranteed to get wild. Be prepared for a drunken good time, and keep some aspirin and water ready for the morning after. (Ben Hopfer)

With Rec-League, Adverse, and Parable Paul

9 p.m., $10

Hotel Utah

500 Fourth St., SF

(415) 546-6300

www.routinefly.com

EVENT

“Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young”

If you’re one of those people for whom a croissant is a “kwah-sahn,” then this week’s Friday Soirée at the de Young Museum, presented in partnership with the Alliance Française, should cater to your Francophiliac tastes. Though not French himself, Rich Kuhns accompanies the “Birth of Impressionism” exhibit as a strolling accordionist. The Bay Area monsieur of musette hearkens back to traditional French sounds — he plays Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf, of course — while also adding some contemporary flair to the fête. Following his performance, Dr. Alexandra Amati-Camperi lectures on the Fête de la Musique, French singer-songwriter Eric John Kaiser performs, and you can make your own found object instrument with Kim Erickson, described as an “art diva” by the de Young website. It’s no coincidence that the word “cliché” is French,” but zut alors, clichés never sounded so good. (Ryan Lattanzio)

5–8:45 p.m., free

de Young Museum

50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, SF

(415) 750-3600

www.deyoung.famsf.org

FILM

Top of the Food Chain

Bluntly retitled Invasion! for its American release, Canadian filmmaker John Paizs’ homage to 1950s sci-fi films, Top of the Food Chain (1999), is the second of his films to screen at Artists’ Television Access in as many months. Previously, the auteur worked on beloved Canadian comedy series Kids in the Hall, but his films have a miniscule presence on the Internet — a few blog reviews here and there, and only two relevant YouTube clips. However, both of those clips are of hilariously non sequitur musical numbers, so that’s a promising sign. Indeed, Paizs’ fetishization of a seemingly outdated genre should be right at home alongside ATA’s usual assemblage of experimental video art. (Sam Stander)

8 p.m., $6

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890

www.atasite.org

PERFORMANCE

Miriam’s Well

This cultural and artistic mashup tells the stories of Mary, Maryam, and Miriam from the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions connecting across time and distance at an ancient water well, the source of life and strife in a world that has yet to come to terms with how we can come together around our most basic shared needs. The performance involves dance, live music, poetry, and readings of sacred texts by a variety of acclaimed artists, from creator and dancer Miriam Peretz to musicians the Qadim Ensemble and master percussionist Pezhham Ackavass to spoken word artist Lana Nasser. It’s a story of visionary women leading all us past our historical and still-growing divisions and toward the realization that “without peace the well will soon run dry.” (Steven T. Jones)

8 p.m., $20

Grace Cathedral

1100 California, SF

(415) 749-6355

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/97354

SATURDAY 19

EVENT/PERFORMANCE

Birthfest and The Dynamite Show

FouFouHa!, San Francisco’s uniquely zany clown dance troupe, wants to take you on a strange journey all the way from a woman’s womb to a glitzy reality show set in Hollywood. That may seem like a long road to travel, but with troupe founder and performance director/choreographer Maya Culbertson-Lane, a.k.a. MamaFou, behind the wheel, it’s sure to be a fun ride. The play, which runs at Brava June 17-26, follows the Fous as they audition to be humiliated on television, exploring the role of the fool in society. But this show is preceded by a film festival on midwifery, with proceeds benefiting the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery, which recently helped MamaFou deliver her second child. What’s the connection? As she explains, it’s about power, “the power to not give into social fears created by a system run by money — in this case Hollywood and insurance companies.” With live music by the Gomorrans Social Aide and Pleasure Club and a photo exhibit by Eric Gillet. (Jones)

Birthfest, noon-6 p.m.; The Dynamite Show, 8 p.m., $20–$40

Brava Theater

2781 24th St., SF

www.foufouha.com

www.birthfest.com

EVENT

StreetSmARTS Community Extravaganza

It’s afternoon in the Tenderloin, and muralist Jet Martinez has been sponsored by the SF Arts Commission to paint traditional Oaxacan embroidery flowers in Cedar Alley. His audience: a man who has been yelling “I’m gonna kill you!” to no one in particular all day. The guy starts to approach him, and when he gets close enough says this to Jet in a low, articulate voice: “We really appreciate what you’re doing for the community.” Don’t ever let them tell you art doesn’t matter. Celebrate the beautiful walls created through StreetSmARTS with b-boys, DJs, and a midnight unveiling of “The Elements of Hip Hop,” a indoor gallery of works by the muralists themselves. (Caitlin Donohue)

Sat/19, 6 p.m., free

African American Art and Culture Complex

762 Fulton, SF

(415) 252-2598

www.sfartscommission.org

MONDAY 21

MUSIC

Brian Jonestown Massacre

Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? the Brian Jonestown Massacre asks in the title of its latest album. It’s possible bandleader Anton Newcombe did, if you recall how insane he was in Ondi Timoner’s documentary Dig! (2004). The San Francisco-bred band returns to the Fillmore in conjunction with its new release — a rather disquieting listen with plenty of dissonant space noise and expletives to make for a psychedelic headbanger’s wet dream. Newcombe, steeped in notoriety since Dig! and its frenetic portrait of the artist as a disturbed man, has been honing his sound since 1990. If you can separate art and artist (or don’t even bother — it makes things more interesting), BJM is one of today’s only bands that should be allowed to remain as prolific as it is. (Lattanzio)

9 p.m., $22.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

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Love stories, politics, yodeling, and more: Frameline 34 short takes

Sue Vaughan
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Love stories, politics, yodeling, and more: Frameline 34 short takes

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister (James Kent, UK, 2010) A BBC production set in the northern English countryside of the early 19th century, James Kent’s The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister depicts the amatory adventures of a gentlewoman landowner (Maxine Peake) in search of a “female companion” with whom to live out her days. The narrative is somewhat breathless, the seductions equally so and yet a bit anemic, and our strong-willed, fearless heroine is admirable without being entirely engaging. Still, besides tapping into the Jane Austen slash fiction demographic, this tale of pre-Victorian bodice ripping and skirt lifting among the female gentry offers the considerable thrill of being adapted from the actual secret diaries of the titular Miss Lister, decoded by a biographer 150 years after her death. A documentary in the festival, Matthew Hill’s The Real Anne Lister, offers a complementary version of her story. Thurs/17, 7 p.m., Castro. (Lynn Rapoport)

I Killed My Mother (Xavier Dolan, Canada, 2009) The title I Killed My Mother suggests a different kind of movie from what it actually is. But that’s OK: though not a crime thriller, the film is still a tightly wound, high stakes drama. Writer-director Xavier Dolan stars as Hubert, the angsty son of the titular mother. When you consider that Dolan’s script is autobiographical — and that he was only 20 when the film was made — his performance becomes all the more impressive. As the mother, Chantale, Anne Dorval is also a force to be reckoned with. Despite its presence as part of a queer film festival, I Killed My Mother is not all that “gay” in the traditional “gay movie” sense. Hubert’s relationship with Antonin (François Arnaud) is secondary — what’s important is how his refusal to share it with his mother affects her. That helps make the movie a refreshing alternative to many more mainstream offerings. Sat/19, 6:45 p.m., Castro. (Louis Peitzman)

The Owls (Cheryl Dunye, USA, 2010) Expectations are high for The Owls: writer-director Cheryl Dunye again collaborates with Guinevere Turner, V.S. Brodie, and other notable queer performers — you can’t not think of classics like Go Fish (1994) and The Watermelon Woman (1996). The Owls isn’t quite at that level, but it’s a fairly thought-provoking piece. Four middle-aged lesbians — played by Dunye, Turner, Brodie, and Lisa Gornick — accidentally kill a younger lesbian and try to cover up the murder. Their ages are central: the fear of getting older is a major thematic concern. So, too, ideas of gender identity, with the introduction of androgynous Skye (Skyler Cooper). But Dunye breaks the fourth wall, staging her film as a pseudo-mockumentary with both the characters and the actors offering commentary. At just over an hour, The Owls can’t sustain all the back-and-forth, and too many intriguing ideas are left unfinished. Fri/18, 7 p.m., Castro. (Peitzman)

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls (Leanne Pooley, New Zealand, 2009) It’s hard to name an American equivalent of New Zealand’s Topp Twins — a folk-singing, comedy-slinging, cross-dressing duo who’re the biggest Kiwi stars you’ve never heard of (but may be just as beloved as, say, Peter Jackson in their homeland). Recent inductees in the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame, the fiftysomething Jools and Lynda, both lesbians, sing country-tinged tunes that slide easily from broad and goofy (with an array of costumed personas) to extremely political, sounding off on LGBT and Maori rights, among other topics. Even if you’re not a fan of their musical style, it’s undeniable that their identical voices make for some stirring harmonies, and their optimism, even when a serious illness strikes, is inspiring. This doc — which combines interviews, home movies, and performance footage — will surely earn them scores of new stateside fans. Sun/20, 3:45 p.m., Castro. (Cheryl Eddy)

Out of the Blue (Alain Tasma, France, 2007) Wearily preparing for a dinner party on a day they’ve both forgotten is their anniversary, Marion (Mireille Perrier) suddenly realizes her 22-year-marriage to Paul (Robin Renucci) is dead. Her decision to end it, however, comes as an infuriating surprise to him and a destabilizing one to their teenage daughter Justine (Chloé Coulloud). They all get quite a surprise when Marion’s new friendship with younger, flamenco-dancing female antiques dealer Claude (Rachida Brakni) turns into something more. This latest in a long line of very good French made-for-TV dramas at Frameline typically handles its complex load of familial and sexual issues with grace and intelligence, if with an occasional excess of high dramatics. Sun/20, 9:30 p.m., Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)

The Consul of Sodom (Sigfrid Monleón, Spain, 2009) Late Spanish poet Jaime Gil de Biedma was many things: an intellectual, aesthete, hedonist, bohemian, discotheque owner, Communist sympathizer (though the Party wouldn’t have him), publisher, more-or-less out gay man, and an occasional lover of flamboyant women like Bel (played by pop singer Bimba Bose). Sheltered by wealth and privilege — to the extent possible in Franco’s Spain — he dabbled in ghetto flesh, sometimes on trips abroad for his family’s tobacco family. As portrayed by actor Jordi Mollá and director Sigfrid Monleon, he’s a mixture of arrogance,
compassion, self-destruction, and shark-like perpetual motion. Seldom missing a chance to drop some full-frontal nudity or a kitschy period song (from 1950s to 80s), this biographical drama — which has been decried as overly sensationalized by some Spanish cultural watchdogs, including a few of the subject’s surviving cronies — is a shamelessly flamboyant and entertaining portrait of a life lived large. Sun/20, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Dzi Croquettes (Tatiana Issa and Raphael Alvarez, Brazil, 2009) Whatever magic fairy dust fuelled the Cockettes’ glitter-covered hippy drag must’ve drifted down south to Brazil to inspire the similarly named Dzi Croquettes. Of course, that’s not the real origin of the equally colorful cabaret troupe, whose fantastic story is told in Raphael Alvarez and Tatiana Issa’s riveting and rollicking documentary. Blending Ziegfeld Follies-style glamour with agitprop, Dzi Croquettes were more polished and more overtly political than their North American sisters; something which frequently landed the group in hot water with José Sarney’s dictatorship. Finding an unlikely and unexpected advocate in Liza Minnelli, Dzi Croquettes fled their homeland in the mid 70s, becoming the unexpected toast of Europe until AIDS began to take its toll. Filled with delightful archival footage and insightful interviews with alumni, Dzi Croquettes is a joyful affirmation of the power of art (and a feathered boa or two) to effect positive change. Mon/21, 11 a.m., Castro. (Matt Sussman)

Brotherhood (Nicolo Donato, Denmark, 2009) It’s hard to feel much sympathy for neo-Nazis. Perhaps that goes without saying, but Danish film Brotherhood asks us to do just that: Lars (Thure Lindhardt) and Jimmy (David Dencik) meet in the service of Hitler’s ideals, then find themselves drawn to each other. As they struggle to come to terms with their attraction, we’re supposed to care. Fat chance. Although Lars initially disproves of the neo-Nazis, he becomes quickly (read: unrealistically) interested in their cause. Soon, he’s writing his own anti-Pakistani propaganda. And Jimmy is devoted to the movement from the get-go, even condemning “faggots” despite his own same-sex attraction. Maybe I’d feel differently if either Lars showed any sign of internal conflict. Neither displays a sense of regret over being a racist, xenophobic, anti-semitic asshole. They’re down with the gay but only in relation to each other. Who gives a crap if these two make it work? Mon/21, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Peitzman)

Plan B (Marco Berger, Argentina, 2009) It’s the oldest story in the book: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy seduces girl’s new boyfriend. OK, maybe not, but the set-up isn’t entirely unheard of either. It’s a credit to Plan B’s sharp aesthetic and strong performances that it still feels fresh. The Argentinean export stars Manuel Vignau as Bruno. When his girlfriend Laura (Mercedes Quinteros) breaks up with him, he decides to get revenge by making his move on Laura’s supposedly bisexual boyfriend Pablo (Lucas Ferraro). If you’ve seen any romantic comedy ever, you know that what begins as a game for Bruno becomes true love. But Plan B doesn’t go the comedy route, and instead offers a compelling, somewhat subtle drama. The love affair is slow but well-paced, so that the inevitable conclusion feels earned and completely satisfying. Mon/21, 9:30 p.m., Elmwood; June 24, 6:30 p.m., Victoria. (Peitzman)

Undertow (Javier Fuentes-León, Peru, 2009) This sexy and delicate drama is a bisexual triangle that continues beyond the grave. In a Peruvian coastal hamlet, fisherman Miguel (Cristian Mercado) loves his pregnant wife and fellow church leader Mariela (Tatiana Astengo). But he’s also having a secret, passionate affair with Santiago (Manolo Cardona), an urbanite who moved there to paint the land- and seascapes, and who chafes at the restrictions Miguel places on their relationship. At a certain point one character dies, and writer-director Javier Fuentes-León seamlessly handles Undertow’s transition to magical realism. The leisurely story doesn’t go where one expects, ending on a perfect grace note of bittersweet acceptance. Tues/22, 7 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Children of God (Kareem J. Mortimer, Bahamas, 2009) Likely the first gay-themed film not just shot in but produced by the Bahamas, Kareem J. Mortimer’s first feature is an occasionally heavy-handed but consistently engrossing mix of romance, religion, and homophobia. Johnny (Johnny Ferro) is a withdrawn Nassau art student who’s a target of gay taunts and bashers. A teacher who says his paintings lack emotion gives him keys to her cottage on the “ultimate landscape” of isle Eleuthera, where he promptly meets the aggressively friendly and inquisitive Romeo (Stephen Tyrone Williams). Also headed here is Lena (Margaret Laurena Kemp), righteous wife of pastor Ralph (Ralph Ford), with whom she shares a strong penchant to publicly denounce the moral threat of “the gays.” She has, however, just left her husband after he furiously denied giving her VD — to confess might reveal that he is, in fact, playing around on the downlow. That’s just the starting point for a complicated, perhaps over-ambitious but sometimes powerfully sensual and poignant film that is definitely amongst this year’s Frameline highlights. June 23, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Spring Fever (Lou Ye, China, 2009) Shot surreptitiously and chock full of gay sex, Chinese director Lou Ye’s latest film isn’t likely to earn him any additional slack from Chinese government censors (his 2006 film, Summer Palace, got him banned from filmmaking for five years after he failed to preview it before it screened at Cannes). Using hand-held cameras, public settings, and natural lighting, Lou follows Wang Ping (Wu Wei), who’s been having a passionate, messy affair with travel agent Jiang Cheng (Qin Hao). Things get more complicated when the snoop Wang’s wife hires to follow her closeted husband winds up pursuing the two men in ways he never imagined. What Spring Fever lacks in continuity and psychological depth, it makes up for with sexual candor and a genuine frisson of risk, given the secretive conditions under which it was made. That thrill doesn’t quite last through the film’s duration, but as a document of defiance Spring Fever is commendable. June 24, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Sussman)

The String (Medhi Ben Attia, France/Belgium, 2010) The cross-cultural coming out drama is a perennial at LGBT film festivals, but Medhi Ben Attia’s assured debut feature presents a familiar tale in new surroundings with flashes of charm. Handsome architect Malik (Antonin Stahly) returns to his posh, Tunisian homestead from France to lay his father to rest, fully intent on coming out to his overly doting, oblivious mother (former Fellini muse Claudia Cardinale). But when he falls for hunky house-boy Bilal (Salim Kechiouche), he finds that the truth has a way of outing itself. Although Attia unspools his film’s titular metaphor rather quickly (having hid his true feelings for so long, Malik feels continuously “tied-up” by a piece of imaginary string), he deserves credit for his nuanced portrayal of gay life in the Maghreb and his inspired casting of Cardinale, who can’t help but radiate an Auntie Mame-ish joie de vivre even when the script calls for “disappointed” over “daffy.” June 25, 7 p.m., Victoria. (Sussman)

Hideaway (Francois Ozon, France, 2009) The very French insouciance with which Francois Ozon usually treats his characters and narratives sometimes makes a film seem perilously slight — yet more often than not he manages to pull off a surprising climactic resonance. Which is the case with this latest. When they both overdose on heroin, Mousse (Isabelle Carré) wakes up pregnant in the hospital — but her boyfriend doesn’t wake at all. Declining his mother’s offer to pay for an abortion, she retreats to a friend’s empty seaside chateau. There she gets an unexpected visitor in Raul (Louis-Ronan Choisy), her late lover’s surviving sibling. Their prickly interplay (and his affair with a local handyman) sometimes seems to be drifting pleasantly nowhere in particular — yet it does end up somewhere, rather poignantly. June 25, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

From Beginning to End (Aluízio Abranches, Brazil/Argentina/Spain, 2009) Just about the definition of upscale gay male softcore, this “big brother” fantasy has nothing to do with George Orwell. Its protagonists are inseparable Brazilian half-brothers (played as adults by Joao Gabriel Vasconcellos and Rafael Cardoso) whose bond caves in to the physical once parental boundaries are removed by mom’s death. This over-the-top kinship is tested when the younger bro is invited to train as a swimmer in the Olympics … in Russia. Near-plotless and borderline senseless, this shamelessly sexy tale from The Three Marias (2002) director Aluízio Abranches succeeds as a guilty pleasure on the sheer, convincing ardor he and his actors bring to their “taboo” love story. June 26, 6 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Howl (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, USA, 2010) Beatniks get the Mad Men treatment — with a cast that includes that AMC hit’s Jon Hamm, playing the lawyer who defended the publisher of Allen Ginsberg’s quintessential rebel yell, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, against obscenity charges in San Francisco’s most celebrated trial of the 1950s. It’s fun to see that anally nostalgic aesthetic translated to ramshackle North Beach apartments and sophomoric, filthy-mouthed literary heroes. Not so much fun: the overly literal animation chosen by the directors (famed documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman). Yes, parts of “Howl,” the poem, are animated — unfortunately in a style that calls to mind bad 1980s French Canadian pseudo-spiritual arthouse schlock. Still, this brief slice of beats is juicy, confined to the trial and the tale of Ginsberg’s poetic and sexual awakening. James Franco is wonderful as the young, self-obsessed, epically needy yet still irresistible crank. It was the first time I found myself wishing to see more of Ginsberg naked. June 27, 7:30 p.m., Castro. (Marke B.)

Frameline34: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival
June 17-27, most shows $8-15
Castro, 429 Castro, SF; Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF; Victoria, 2961 16th St, SF; Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College, Berk
www.frameline.org

Super stories

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Super stories

arts@sfbg.com

FILM It’s film festival season, which means one thing: stories. Lots of them. And not just the ones that happen on film, but all the ones that happen before, during, and after the tapes get mastered and the crowds go home. While this is certainly true of all films, it’s especially true for the Queer Women of Color Film Festival, held annually at Brava Theater Center in the Mission.

Each year the festival premieres 25 short films made by and for women of color, who travel from across the Bay Area, and sometimes the state, to a small workshop in the Sunset District and learn the ins and outs of video production. The end results are nuanced, gripping, and often hilarious stories of how amazing, awkward, and complex love can be. So even though the festival’s yearly themes may be heavy — last year’s focused on immigration, this year’s celebrates queer indigenous communities — crowds pack the theatre, enjoy free food, and see that there’s more than enough to smile about.

This year’s festival brought a variety of movies. In Ferment Me My Heart, one Korean Canadian woman used animation to explore her love-hate relationship with kimchi and what it tastes like to be an outsider. Home is Where My Mother Is showed that all ain’t pretty in the world of queer families, as one woman confronted her lesbian mother over a traumatic interracial relationship. Bulldagger Women and Sissy Men paid homage to the Harlem Renaissance’s queer characters. A mother and daughter bonded over basketball in Hoops, and Passing Through Like Water followed three generations of Iranian women as they navigated how to deal with change and one another.

The festival also included a sacred ceremony for indigenous queer communities, and related films that unearthed the lessons of Cherokee elders and explored what Proposition 8 means to native women. If you missed out, you still have a chance to see some highlights when “F**king Traditional Values: Queer Women of Color Shorts” screens at Frameline.

F**KING TRADITIONAL VALUES: QUEER WOMEN OF COLOR SHORTS

Sun/20, 4:15 p.m., $8

Victoria Theatre

2961 16th St.

(415) 863-7576

www.frameline.org

www.qwocmap.org 

 

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