RIP

Jello sounds off

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When setting up an interview with Jello Biafra, I got this light-hearted warning: “There is no such thing as a short interview with Jello.” It’s true, the legendary punk showman/spoken word enthusiast is full of political ideas, historical references, and elder-punk-dude tales. How can he be expected to keep it brief?

Below, we spend an intense half hour discussing the media, corruption, spoken word, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine, Jello Biafra and the New Orleans Raunch and Soul All-Stars, and the future of underground rock’n’roll. (For the feature on Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine, see this week’s paper):

San Francisco Bay Guardian
Where do you gather your news? What are your sources for political commentary in your songs?

Jello Biafra Why, the Bay Guardian, of course! Where would a local voter be without your fine rag? I just hope the new ownership and staff goes pedal to the metal to keep up the standard of muckraking and ethics. There’s so much corruption to dig up in this area.

I think the real renaissance was before the Weekly was sold to New Times/VVM, when the Guardian and the Weekly were both muckraking papers concentrating on local issues and were trying to out-scoop each other. That’s what I’d like to see continue and come back.

But basically I’d read a lot of periodicals. Locally, we have you folks, among others. And then you know Nation, Progressive, Mother Jones, interesting things people send me in the mail, digitally or otherwise, talking to people, putting two and two together — trying to write songs about stuff that no one else has! Or at least not in the same way.

SFBG Why is that? Why choose to write songs about something no one else has?

JB It’s just filling in the gaps with what’s interesting. I’m proud that no two of my music albums sound alike. Not even the Lard albums sound alike. From Dead Kennedys onward my mission as the main lyricist and composer of the damn tunes, I kind of stick to my punk core — whether I intend to or not, it’s just who and what I am — and but kind of widen the base of the pyramid to what you can do with that energy.

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

SFBG What are some the topics you focused on when writing White People and the Damage Done?

JB I guess it was a little more focused as a semi-concept album, than anything since Frankenchrist. It’s basically about grand theft austerity, and how unnecessary it is, what a scam it is. People have asked me when we go to play different cities or countries, what I think is the biggest problem in the world today and they expect me to say something like “climate change” which I prefer to call “climate collapse” because that’s what it is, or inequality, or war, or whatever, and I say you know, there’s a worse one, it’s corruption. Because that is what’s blocking anything constructive being done about all the other problems. There’s a thread through White People and the Damage Done about that. 

The title track is not so much about race specifically, but about this attitude of the higher ups in the United States, the EU, and others, is that other countries, especially ones run by people of color, where we call them “Third World” or whatever, are somehow unfit to govern themselves and need us to pull the strings, plant the puppets, and tell everyone what to do. And it’s often for the purposes of looting their resources and exploiting their people. And what kind of unintended consequences that can have.

For example, we talk about why we need more democracy in Iran, and we don’t have the big bad Soviet Empire to freak out everyone anymore so we have Iran and North Korea instead. Wait a minute, you want democracy in the Middle East? Well Iran was a democracy in the early 1950s, guess who decided to overthrow the democratically-elected leader Mohammad Mosaddegh, and put the most hated person in the country, the Shah, back into power? But he was our policeman for the gulf basically, and he got overthrown anyway. And now it’s a theocratic regime. Where would be today if we had just left that region alone in the 1950s?

Same for Afghanistan. I nearly went through the roof when I found out about an interview with Jimmy Carter’s old national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski’s, whose daughter is on one of the morning cartoon pundit shows, bragged on an interview with French media about what a great thing we did by arming, training, and financing the guerrillas in Afghanistan before the Soviet Union invaded, and how we cracked apart the evil empire, hooray for us, we win.

But look what we created for crying out loud. We were even helping back a young hothead with a trust fund named Osama Bin Laden. And then once the Soviets were out, we didn’t lift a finger to help rebuild the country, let alone take back the guns and rocket-launchers. And now look where we are. That’s another example of white people and the damage done.

[Pause] hold on my juice machine, now I have to turn it off, it’s bouncing all over the counter.

SFBG What kind of juice are you making?

JB Oh, just a mixture of stuff. Spinach, apples, other things.

SFBG Can you tell me about forming Guantanamo School of Medicine?

JB Here we go again. I wanted to have another band ever since Dead Kennedys, it just never quite happened. Either people weren’t available, or I was off doing spoken word or other adventures, but of course I never stopped making albums, there was Lard, two with the Melvins, one with DOA, Mojo Nixon, NoMeansNo.

I kept the music out there, I just didn’t have a performing vehicle. And then when I was down at the Warfield seeing the Stooges on Iggy’s 60th birthday, it occurred to me, “oh shit, I turn 50 next year. I better do something or I may never get another chance.” If it’s half as good as the Stooges, I’ll declare victory.

SFBG Do you have any other projects coming up?

JB I started getting back into spoken word. I did a tour in Australia after the band’s tour was done. And at some point, something that will probably see the light of day: some of the New Orleans guys from Cowboy Mouse and Dash Rip Rock dared me to come down there during the jazz fest a few years ago and do a whole set of New Orleans soul and rhythm and blues songs, which I did with some badly needed garage rock added in and we got Mojo Nixon’s keyboard wizard with all the Jerry Lee Lewis moves, and quite the cacophonous horn section, as well as [Cowboy Mouth’s] Fred LeBlanc, and [Dash Rip Rock’s] Bill Davis.

The multitrack recording was a trainwreck, but then Ben Mumphrey who works with Frank Black and the Pixies and many others, called me up and said he could rescue this recording. Slowly but surely he has been rescuing it. So Jello Biafra and the New Orleans Raunch and Soul All-Stars will see the light of day somehow. We haven’t been able to pull it together to play a show though. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as8Y2HWzUwI

SFBG I was wondering your opinion of this new, kind of second tech bubble taking over in areas like the Mission?

JB Again, I refer you to one of my songs. It came out on the EP of the rest of the recording session when we recorded The Audacity of Hype with Billy Gould. The song is called “Dot Com Monte Carlo.” And sure enough there was a little mini firestorm on the Internet of course. A lot of people writing in were too chicken-shit to sign their own names, but they said ‘oh that’s such an old topic, it doesn’t matter anymore.’

Well I had this funny feeling we weren’t done with the Dot Com Holocaust. Sure enough, now it’s more aggressive and obnoxious than ever. Dot Com Monte Carlo — that’s kind of what Willie Brown’s puppets are trying to turn this city into, yet again.

It has been really sad for me to see so many cool people and artists and service-workers and people of color just bull-dozed out of this town to make room for more mini little yuppies who treat San Francisco as a suburb of Silly-clone Valley.

And now you don’t see people like me when I was 19, just moving out to San Francisco chasing a dream. There was a time when the vitality of the underground was maintained by entire bands moving here as a unit. Everybody from MDC and the Dicks to DRI and later, Zen Guerilla, the only one I can think of in recent years, who dare tried to relocate to San Francisco were I believe No Doctors and Sixteen Bitch Pile-Up, and I’m not sure either one of them exist at this point. Maybe they all packed up and left. A lot of that underground fire, and that’s not just confined to rock of course, but a lot is going on in Oakland now.

SFBG Yeah, I’ve had a lot of bands telling me they can’t afford San Francisco anymore, so they’ve been moving to the East Bay or beyond…

JB I mean, I’d hate to see San Francisco turn any further into a giant Aspen, Colorado, or even Boulder, Colorado, which is where I fled from in order to come here [in ’78.]

SFBG Are there current East Bay or San Francisco bands that you feel like are doing good things?

JB Of course I always brain-fart on this question. Well, of course I’m going to support my label bands, I love Pins of Light.

SFBG How involved are you with Alternative Tentacles? Are you going out and finding bands?

JB Well I’m still the absentee-thought-lord, the buck stops with me. Someone deeply suspicious of capitalism has wound up owning a business by default, whether I should or not. Luckily there’s still money to pay a shrinking staff and to make sure we can keep putting out cool things. But it’s becoming harder and harder because of the combination of a crashed economy, rents going through the ceiling all over country, and file-sharing on the other hand. Of course, one feeds the other when people don’t have any money.

That doesn’t mean I support these misguided efforts, these major label RIAA scams to blackmail people and sue them for file-sharing. They’ve raked in over a hundred million dollars doing that and no artist has seen a penny. That’s not the way to solve this.

On the other hand, when I see one of the best bands we’ve seen in years like the Phantom Limbs break up way too soon, I can’t help but wonder whether file-sharing might be a part of the problem, with so many people going crazy over them and going to their shows all over the place, and then hardly anybody buys the album.

When you’ve got people in the age of high housing and transportation cost trying to keep themselves fed or also sustain a family, that hurts. I wonder how many people save up money from their shitty jobs for years in order to make some really cool piece of music only to find that nobody actually gives anything back; they’re that much more likely to quit making anything.

Maybe the solution is, for people who want to get their friends into really cool music, don’t just send them the whole album, pick some favorites and send them a little teaser package, a little file to inspire them to check out them more.

Not to mention, be conscious of whose file you’re sharing. Major labels go so far out of their way to rip off their artists anyways, with an army of lawyers to back them up. But when it’s an underground artist or label, that’s different. I never would have thought that GSL would’ve stopped, for example. Or that Touch and Go would draw mainly into reissues and back catalogue. It’s not just the economy and music industry crashed that’s to blame, it’s also people who don’t think artists should get any of their support.

SFBG Do you still love performing in front of a crowd? Do you have any recent performances with this band that you’ll take with you?

JB I’m not sure I’d be doing it if there wasn’t this inner need to do it. I’m really greatful that at my age anybody even cares about what I have to say, or new stuff I’ve been making.

We’ve been able to play a lot of places Dead Kennedys weren’t, because countries hadn’t opened up yet and they were still under the boot of Communist dictators or Latin American military or whatever. And we get to play for people in those places now. I don’t have the kind money where I can go jet-setting around to these places, I have to play my way to places like Buenos Aires or Slovenia, or I’ll never get there.

Bringing these musical riffs in my head to life and to have them actually work and getting to play them for people, that’s always pretty cool.

Some of the stranger moments were last time we were in Geneva we had a stage-diver in a wheelchair. The crowd was very gentle with him, passing him around, and making sure he was reunited with the chair, which was floating somewhere else in the crowd. Three or four songs later, he’d be back again! That was good.

Also, being able to scrape together just enough of my high school Spanish to be able to talk to people in Buenos Aires from the stage about some songs that were written with them in mind. I mean, “Bleed for Me,” the old Dead Kennedys song, was written about the Dirty Wars. And this was the first time I could actually dedicate “Bleed for Me” to the Desaparecidos in Argentina and explain it a little bit.

Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine
With D.I., the Divvys, Girl-illa Biscuits
Fri/26, 9pm, $15
Uptown
1928 Telegraph, Oakl.
www.uptownnightclub.com

Rep Clock: July 17 – 23, 2013

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Schedules are for Wed/17-Tue/23 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-9. “Periwinkle Cinema: Reality Check,” short films, Wed, 8. The Space Invaders: In Search of Lost Time (Von Ward, 2012), Fri, 8. “An Evening with Sublime Frequencies and filmmaker Hisham Mayet,” Sat, 8.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •Mystery Train (Jarmusch, 1989), Wed, 7, and Night on Earth (Jarmusch, 1991), Wed, 9:05. San Francisco Silent Film Festival: Prix de Beauté (Genina, 1930), Thu, 7; “Amazing Tales from the Archives,” Fri, 11am (free screening); The First Born (Mander, 1928), Fri, 2; Tokyo Chorus (Ozu, 1931), Fri, 4:30; The Patsy (Vidor, 1928), Fri, 7; The Golden Clown (Sandberg, 1926), Fri, 9:30; “Winsor McCay: His Life and Art,” presentation by John Canemaker, Sat, 10am; The Half-Breed (Dwan, 1916), Sat, noon; Legong: Dance of the Virgins (de la Falaise, 1935), Sat, 2:15; Gribiche (Feyder, 1926), Sat, 4; The House on Trubnaya Square (Barnet, 1928), Sat, 6:30; The Joyless Street (Pabst, 1925), Sat, 8:30; “The Kings of (Silent) Comedy,” Sun, 10am; The Outlaw and His Wife (Sjöström, 1918), Sun, 1; The Last Edition (Johnson, 1925), Sun, 3:30; The Weavers (Zelnik, 1927), Sun, 6; Safety Last! (Taylor and Newmeyer, 1923), Sun, 8:30. Tickets (most shows $15) and more info, including accompanists for each program, at www.silentfilm.org. The Great Gatsby (Luhrmann, 2013), Mon-Tue, 6, 9 (also Tue, noon, 3).

CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY MUSEUM 221 Fourth St, SF; www.artsanddialogue.org. Free (space is limited, so RSVP to info@ybcbd.org). “Arts and Dialogue presents the Yerba Buena Mini-Film Festival,” Thu, 6.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Augustine (Winocour, 2012), call for dates and times. Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012), call for dates and times. One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das (Frindel, 2012), call for dates and times. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), call for dates and times. Storm Surfers 3D (McMillan and Nelius, 2012), call for dates and times. 20 Feet From Stardom (Neville, 2013), call for dates and times. The Hunt (Vinterberg, 2012), July 19-25, call for times. The Oyster Princess (Lubitsch, 1919) with “Cops” (Cline and Keaton, 1922), Mon, 7:15. With live musical accompaniment; this event, $12.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” V/H/S 2 (Various directors, 2013), Fri-Sat, midnight.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 400 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Free (donations appreciated). The School of Rock (Linklater, 2003), Fri, 8; Brave (Andrews and Chapman, 2012), Sat, 8.

518 VALENCIA SF; www.laborfest.net. Donations accepted . International Working Class Film and Video Festival: •Strike (Eisenstein, 1925), and Even the Heavens Weep: The Mine Wars of West Virginia (McGuire, 1985), Thu, 7.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. RiP!: A Remix Manifesto (Gaylor, 2008), Wed, 7:30.

NIMBY’S 8410 Amelia, Oakl; www.brainwashm.com. $10. Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Festival, Fri-Sat through July 27, 9 (music at 8). All shows broadcast in FM stereo.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Dark Nights: Simenon and Cinema:” The Man on the Eiffel Tower (Meredith, 1949), Wed, 7; La Marie du port (Carné, 1950), Fri, 7; The Brothers Rico (Karlson, 1957), Sat, 8:30. “A Call to Action: The Films of Raoul Walsh:” Objective Burma (1945), Thu, 7. “From the Archive: Treasures of Eastern European and Soviet Cinema:” And Give My Love to the Swallows (Jires, 1971), Fri, 8:45; The Maple and Juliana (Uher, 1972), Sat, 6:30. “Castles in the Sky: Masterful Anime from Studio Ghibli:” Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001), Sun, 4:30.

REDSTONE BUILDING 2940 16th St, SF; www.laborfest.net. Donations accepted. International Working Class Film and Video Festival: •Living As Brothers (Fraser, 2012), with “Newspeak” (Fero, 2011) and Mothers of Fukushima (Torii, 2013), Fri, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. How to Make Money Selling Drugs (Cooke, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (Nance, 2012), Fri-Sun, 9:15; July 22-25, 7. Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (DiNicola and Mori, 2012), Fri-Sun, 6:45; July 22-25, 9. “Pictoclik Film Festival,” local film festival competition, Fri-Sat, 9. This event, $30-50.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. Band of Sisters (Fishman, 2012), Thu-Sun, 6, 8 (also Fri, 4; Sat-Sun, 2, 4). *

 

Before Outside Lands: Youth Lagoon on Art Garfunkel, the spiritual significance of pelicans

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Youth Lagoon, the aloof youth that is Trevor Powers, has explored new land in latest album Wondrous Bughouse (Fat Possum). Revealing, yet withholding, the album proved his ability to not just create cosmic bliss, but deliver a few deep messages while doing it.

With the album, the 24-year-old Idaho native takes us through the fires of temptation in song “Mute,” dances with death on “Raspberry Cane” and paints an immensely disturbing and bloody image of love and sacrifice in “Pelican Man.”

Currently on tour in Europe, Powers will be here in SF to perform at Outside Lands this Aug. 9-11 (he plays Saturday, Aug. 10).The professional effects tinkerer and melody craftsman talked with me about his afro days, his penchant for destroy-and-create-again style of making music, and how bloody violence can really be sweet: 

San Francisco Bay Guardian Most of the songs on Wondrous Bughouse sound melancholic, pensive, or a bit glum. Would you say this was a reflection of where your mind was at when recording this album or have you simply felt more compelled to write songs of this nature?

Trevor Powers I always feel pulled different ways at different times, so what I write is always a reflection of where I am at the moment. I stay in certain obsessions for long periods of time so when I write for months at a time, usually those blocks of time show a type of consistency with whatever I’m working on.

I’ll have periods where I hate melody or how it’s portrayed, and other times where I go back to it and take the music and rip it into pieces mentally to see how I can put it back together. With this record, I wanted to go a deeper with the melancholy.

SFBG You have said before that you’re getting more into heavy expressive sounds lately and in Wondrous Bughouse,’is there something this specific style of music does for you that maybe straight rock or grunge doesn’t?

TP I guess I don’t usually think of music in styles like a lot of people. I just hear sounds being used in altered ways. Maybe I’m just desensitized to it all by now. Everybody hears sounds differently. Something I find relatable or exciting that I show to someone else could make the other person cringe, and vice versa. So it really has nothing to do with musical styles, but with speaking through sounds and noise, and that never looks the same.

SFBG What’s the best concert you have ever been to and why?

TP Art Garfunkel — it was my first concert and I was a little boy with an afro.

SFBG  Could you talk a little bit about the meaning of song “Pelican Man”?

TP Pelicans have a lot of history for spiritual significance. There are legends that say when a pelican’s babies are starving, the mother will stab her own breast with her beak to draw blood that her children can then drink. She’ll bleed out so her babies can drink her up, giving her life for theirs. A sacrifice similar to that of Jesus. Lyrically, that idea is contrasted with one of murder and serial killing. Violence out of ultimate love juxtaposed with violence out of complete hate.

SFBG Are there any artists at Outside Lands you’re looking forward to seeing?

TP I’m actually not sure who is playing so I’ll have to look up the schedule tonight and start getting my planning on. I will wear my new camouflage jumpsuit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvWDUN57Cko

The young master

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM After a banner 2012 and early 2013 — in which his 1958 Vertigo was named the best film of all time by Sight and Sound magazine; a critically-panned but still entertaining-enough biopic hit theaters; and a months-long career retrospective, “The Shape of Suspense,” played the Pacific Film Archive — Alfred Hitchcock’s revival continues. Next up is “The Hitchcock 9,” a San Francisco Silent Film Festival showcase of nine silent films — nearly his entire 1920s output, all made before he turned 30.

His best-known films continue to inspire pop culture (see: A&E’s hit Bates Motel), but Hitchcock’s earliest work isn’t widely circulated. That may change thanks to the British Film Institute’s restoration efforts, the fruits of which are unspooling stateside on a multi-city tour (along with the Silent fest, co-presenters include the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) launching at the Castro Theatre. Live music by acclaimed musicians will enhance each screening, including the five-piece Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Bay Area pianist-composer Judy Rosenberg, and British silent-film specialist Stephen Horne.

In movie-crazed San Francisco, where Silent fest screenings regularly sell out (this year’s event is July 18-21; start your engines, Louise Brooks fans), the only dilemma will be deciding which of the Hitchcock 9 to see. Opening night offers a tempting option in 1929’s Blackmail, which Hitchcock — always adventurous with filmmaking technology — shot as a silent/sound hybrid.

Her blonde hair hinting at what would become a Hitchcock trademark, saucer-eyed beauty Alice (Anny Ondra) steps out on her inattentive boyfriend, a Scotland Yard detective, with an artist whose intentions prove shockingly lascivious. Alice has no choice but to stab her attacker (and rip one of his creepy clown paintings) and skulk off into the night, leaving the murder scene for her cop beau to find. What happens next is given away by the film’s title, but no matter — Blackmail is suspenseful to the end.

Another fair-haired lass encounters menace in closing-night film The Lodger (1926), a thriller that takes its stylistic cues from German Expressionist films, particularly 1920’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Sassy model Daisy (June Tripp, credited as “Miss June”) declares “No more peroxide for yours truly!” when London’s headlines begin shrieking about a serial killer, “The Avenger,” who exclusively targets blondes. Enter a gloomy-yet-dreamy stranger (Ivor Novello), who takes a room at the boarding house run by Daisy’s parents; it doesn’t take long before he makes the landlady uneasy (he does wear a cape, after all), though Daisy finds him intriguing. Naturally, her boyfriend — another cop — becomes highly jealous, not to mention suspicious.

Blackmail and The Lodger are stuffed with elements that would later be easily identifiable as “Hitchcockian” (witness Blackmail‘s high-climbing climax — it ain’t Mount Rushmore, but you see where the idea’s heading). But The Ring, about a love triangle between two boxers and the (dark-haired) temptress that motivates their brawls, is Hitch’s only original script penned without collaborators, and it’s hardly chockablock with psychological terrors. It is, however, a charming sports romance with some nifty technical touches, including an early example of a drunken scene being shot in blurry “booze-o-vision.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2T4ZrBel6A

The rest of the Hitchcock 9: 1928’s daffy-heiress tale Champagne; 1927’s Downhill, which also stars The Lodger‘s Novello; 1927’s Isle of Man-set The Manxman; 1928 comedy The Farmer’s Wife, with The Ring‘s Hall-Davis; 1927 Noel Coward adaptation Easy Virtue; and Hitchcock’s feature debut, 1926’s The Pleasure Garden. 

THE HITCHCOCK 9

Fri/14-Sun/16, $15–<\d>$20 (nine-film pass, $135)

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.silentfilm.org

 

San Onofre, RIP (no more nukes)

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“No news is good news” went right out the window last Friday. San Onofre’s nuclear power plant has announced it will close permanently.

After failed and costly equipment swaps and steam generator failures, So Cal Edison threw in the towel. A half billion in unpaid bills is its legacy.

To say that this is incredibly great for the people of LA, Orange County and San Diego is an understatement of enormous proportions. As the residents of Fukushima, Chernobyl or Three Mile Island might tell you, a nuclear power plant is not conducive to the well being of anyone. The former nuke plant was, like Onofre, proximitous to a fault line and as the disaster in Japan unfolded, surely the people of Carlsbad and Oceanside could feel their guts tighten–well, no more.

Nuclear power–for all of its “bang for the buck”–is yet another taxpayer subsidized disaster. And even Edison admits that with moderate conservation, the plant’s customers may make it through summer as they seek an alternative.

Not to pound the too obvious drum, but as Onofre already has generator infrastructure and is adjacent to uninhabited and bare field and hills, why not do what the Antelope Valley is doing? Cover the giant bubble in panels and kick out the sunny jams. Cover those barren hillsides in same. Given that the cost of solar has plummeted and liability insurance at about nil, it’s about time.

SoCal Edison is loathe to do this, as it does usher in their eventual demise. But the future is headed that way no matter what they think. And with San Onofre down, the trad surfers, the fisherman, the beach lovers–can all return. We won!

Save the white lion: Author on a quest to re-wild rare kitties

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WE DO NOT EAT THE KITTIES. I mean, some people do/would be excited to do so, given the meat-lust stirred up by the recent appearance of lion meat skewers on the menu at a Burlingame restaurant. But not us, not meow, not ever. 

Let’s instead focus on the arrival in the Bay Area of a woman famed for her work rescuing the technically-extinct white lion. Linda Tucker, take the bad taste out of our bewhiskered mouths, will you?

Tucker’s in town to read to us from her new journal Saving the White Lions: One Woman’s Battle for Africa’s Most Sacred Animal, which is a rundown of her efforts to preseve the white cats for future generations. The quest led her to start the Global White Lion Protection Trust, and she’ll be appearing today Mon/10 at Modern Times Bookstore Collective, and on Wed/12 at Book Passage in the Ferry Building to talk about her organization’s crusade.

The white lion is a relatively recent discovery in the Western world — Europeans didn’t first spot them until the early 1940s in the Greater Timbavati and southern Kruger Park region of South Africa. The white people promptly started hunting the white kitties, breeding babies for eventual slaughter as trophies, and installing them in zoos far afield from the Savannahs where they like to stay. The last white lion in the wild was seen in 1994. 

Tucker’s organization is attempting to establish the white lion genotype as a subspecies of Pantera leo, which would allow the cats to be officially classified as endangered and help stop hunting in their geographic area and the sale of their body parts, as well as those captive breeding practices which stress their gene pool. The group also works on re-introducing the cats into the wild — which Tucker says it’s successfully accomplished for three prides. 

The Global White Lion Protection Trust also recently saved the life of Nyanga, a white lioness whose cage was left open at the Johannesburg Zoo the day she killed a worker there. She’s since been relocated to a wildlife sanctuary, where the stresses of zoo life won’t kill anyone else. (RIP Tatiana, we miss you girl.)

Of course, Tucker is not the only hero here. Consider her website’s description of Marah, the lioness who started it all: 

her name means ‘mother of Rah, the sungod”, she formidably shattered all misperceptions about white lions not being able to hunt and survive in the wild — she successfully raised her cubs (Zihra, Letaba and Regeus) to adulthood under free-roaming conditions and taught them to hunt self-sufficiently. Her hunting success rate was comparable to the wild-born tawny lionesses that were observed in the same environment, under the exact same conditions.

Linda Tucker

Mon/10, 7-9pm, free

Modern Times Bookstore Collective

2919 24th St., SF

www.moderntimesbookstore.com

Wed/12, 6-7:30pm, free

Book Passage

Ferry Building, Embarcadero and Market, SF

www.bookpassage.com

Arturo Vega, RIP

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Arturo Vega, creative designer and lights operator for the de facto inventors of punk rock the Ramones, died this morning. He was 65.

Vega, a Mexican national who emigrated to New York in the ’70s, was the designer of the “Hey Ho Let’s Go” eagle/baseball bat/band member’s name logo that adorned their shirts for 20 plus years. He was also the band’s virtual lifeline in their formative years, providing a home for bassist Dee Dee and singer Joey in his Bowery loft. 

He was a gentleman and a warm hearted, soft spoken genial man with a dry wit. He was also a champion of punk rock and its bands–when my first group (Thrills) first started playing CBGB and Hurrah, Arturo would store our gear for us at the Ramones loft and when off the road, always cheer us on–his approval meant a lot, because if Arturo thought you were OK, you were OK.

Later in his life, he became a fitness fanatic and chronicler of all things Ramone. Was always a joy to hear from him.

Like it was 1979 forever. We’ll miss you, Artie.

Eat your Oates at the Castro’s amazing double-feature tonight

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Not even sure if “amazing” is a strong enough word, but the Castro Theatre is screening a pair of cool-ass movies on 35mm tonight. Frankly, I don’t think you have anything better to do, because there isn’t anything better than a WARREN OATES movie except maybe a WARREN OATES DOUBLE FEATURE.

Kicking things off at 7pm, it’s Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). Oates plays a perpetually rumpled bartender whose determination to collect a huge bounty (the prize: see title) leads him into some mighty surreal adventures in Mexico’s sinister outback. Co-stars include Kris Kristofferson (in particularly kreepy mode).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPaUPU9xdgM

Next up, at 9:05pm, is the greatest road movie ever made, Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop (1971). Oates plays G.T.O., which is what I’ll be naming my hypothetical third child. (My first kid, of course, would be called Warren Oates; the second would be Harry Dean Stanton. Obvi.) The Red Vic (RIP) used to show Two-Lane Blacktop all the time, so head out tonight, first to see a wonderful movie, but also to thank the Castro for filling the two-lane void.

Joey Covington, RIP

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Joey Covington, former drummer of the Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, was killed in a  car crash in Palm Springs, Tuesday. He was 67.

The Airplane’s third drummer (after Skip Spence and Spencer Dryden), Covington replaced Dryden after the Airplane’s evolution into a long jam type group was too physically taxing for Dryden.Covington wrote and sang the band’s tune “Pretty As You Feel” in 1971. He co-founded Hot Tuna two years earlier with Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen as a bluesy side project that the latter two continue with to this day.

 

Maxwell’s, RIP

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Maxwell’s–one of the very first stops on the Indie rock circuit–closes up shop this July. In business since 1978, the Hoboken nightspot has hosted bands all the way from indie mainstays like Yo La Tengo and the Feelies and Husker Du and the Replacements to unlikelies like Blue Oyster Cult. But when their lease ends at the end of July, so do they.

Unlike their punkish forefather across the Hudson, CBGB, Maxwell’s wasn’t entirely done in by gentrification, although that undoubtedly had a part in it. Hoboken–once only famous for Sinatra–had gone from being a very cheap Big Apple alternative to another pricey borough. Mostly, the issues were parking (which had become impossible) and general malaise. Given that the place will have made 35 years in business, that’s a good run.

Whatever takes its place will have nowhere near the same effect. But it’s telling that club management says that their actual competition in Hoboken came more from sports bar and “big screen TV’s”.

That isn’t the only reason. Let’s get real here–tastes have changed and indie rock is not the music of choice among the most prized demo of club goers, folks 21-28. When I was bouncing at Bottom of the Hill and the Kilowatt in the mid 90’s, I noticed that while carding patrons, the number of habitues over 30 was rarely over 10%. This is 2013–the average clubgoer now was born in 1987, which means that by the time they came of age, most of what they’d heard was hip hop and techno. Rock hasn’t been a sizable player in radio listener demo (outside of oldies) for years. A 24 or 25 year old now has been into Electronic Dance Music for maybe 10 years and its reach has expanded as it has replaced or become a hybrid with hip hop as dominant pop music. The idea of a band with guitars is, well, quaint (and banjos and uke’s even quainter, and now commercially viable–who says “folk” is dead?). However much I’d like to think that the “Beatles set up” (two guitars, bass, drums) would live forever–nothing does.

The Maxwell’s of the world cannot compete with DJ’s. The latter are solo acts whose music is immediately accessible. They’re cheaper and the relentless and steady flow of beats mean dancing feet and drinking faces. Clubs love that. They do not love five bands jousting for 40 minute sets, changeovers, audiences fleeing and complete indifference–who can blame them?

Everything that lives has to die. I played Maxwell’s once, in 1984. Good place. Played a zillion other places that are now gone, from CB’s to the Rat to Raji’s to Nightbreak–and it doesn’t pain me to say that they’re gone. They’re rooms–what counts is the music and the people. Mourning the Mabuhay or the I-Beam or Max’s Kansas City or the Satyricon or Off Ramp is silly. They, like Maxwell’s, are alive in your memories just like the clubs the EDM fans go to now will live in theirs. Viva le whatever, OK?

 

Jean Stapleton, RIP

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Jean Stapleton, best known as “Edith Bunker” on TV’s “All In The Family”, passed away in New York. She was 90.

Not only was she an actress of amazing skill and poise, but consider the obvious: There would never be an “All In The Family” today (discounting cartoons like “The Simpsons” or “Family Guy”).

Every lefty PC pressure group would be screaming bloody murder about Archie’s “hate speech” and every RW blabbermouth would be spittle-flecking mics everywhere about how “this show makes real Americans look stupid”. (With subtle and probably not so subtle references to the show’s “Hollywood elite producers”, ie, Jews).

In reality, Archie was a lovable character, as was Edith. His daughter’s husband, the leftist meathead, no. Edith balanced off her husband’s reactionary nitwittery with common sense, as opposed to the dopey rhetoric spouted by the collegiate know it all. Which is how life is supposed to work and why it was the greatest TV show of all time.

What we do is secret

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emilysavage@sfbg.com

TOFU AND WHISKEY Bay Area garage pop quintet the Mantles will release Love Enough to Leave on Slumberland Records next month (June 18) and play the Rickshaw Stop a few short days before that (June 14). The breezy group formed in 2007, but sounds like it could just have easily been hanging out at Vesuvio in Jack Kerouac Alley or across the street at Specs Bar in 1968, grasping stiff drinks and talking politics and fashion with local drunks.

Although, singer-guitarist Michael Olivares, wife and drummer Virginia Weatherby, and their new dog Jumbo moved to Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood last year thanks to rising rents in Bernal Heights, where they formerly lived. So that old-time SF scenario isn’t quite as picturesque as conjured. But the band still bleeds Bay Area. Olivares and Weatherby frequent nearby 1-2-3-4 Go! Records for vinyl, and the Night Light, the Hemlock, the Knockout, and El Rio for live shows. The band recorded its new album with local legend Kelley Stoltz, and the other three band members — keyboardist Carly Putnam, bassist Matt Roberts and, newish lead guitarist Justin Loney — live scattered throughout SF, in the Tenderloin and the Mission.

Plus, it’s really more the sound that evokes those vintage tastes, those early Nuggets-esque psych-pop ideals. Olivares gets the comparisons and appeal, though hopes his band does not come off as just a carbon copies of the past (it doesn’t). “We definitely like all of that music and other things from that era, that culture,” he says. “We’re aware enough though that I hope to not become just a blatant revivalist band that’s trying to wear tie-dye shirts and bell-bottoms or something.”

But still, the favorable comparison is applicable, “Most of the music I listen to is from that era, the ’60s and ’70s, so I’d say we’re pretty heavily influenced by it.”

This may come as no surprise to listeners still besotted with the Mantles’ self-titled 2010 debut (Siltbreeze), with its nimbly Byrds-like appeal. Yes, three years later (and EP Pink on Mexican Summer in between) the mood remains upbeat, but like the musicians who created it, there’s an older wisdom to the approach.

There’s a seen-it-all-before strength from tracks off Love Enough to Leave such as “Brown Balloon” and only slightly more solemn album closer “Shadow of Your Step.” It’s like the group time-warped and took those free-wheeling early folk popsters back to the garage with them, plugged in and showed them proto-punk, then had a serious conversation about what would happen to the Bay Area in 2013: housing prices will rise again, there will be this thing called the web that changes everything.

When asked what’s changed since he first moved to SF a decade ago, Olivares says it seems like bands have gone poppier (including his own), but also notes there’s been a shift in the sheer number of house shows in SF proper.

He says their migration to the East Bay loosely influenced title track, “Long Enough to Leave,” and “Don’t Cross Town.”

Conversely, there are some more character-based tracks inspired by books and films like Mike Leigh’s comedic camping ode Nuts in May (1976), including jangly opener “Marbled Birds” and the illusory single “Hello,” which initially seems like a pleasant conversation. Cheery to begin with, it feels like candy and turquoise rotary telephones in teenage bedrooms (a ruse, the band members are all actually in their early 30s). But then, it gets to the line, “Hello/Maybe you can help me get out of here.” Ah, the hook, and out comes the reverb. Olivares told me it was actually about a time when his friend in France was sending postcards and he kept forgetting to respond.

While the Mantles may evoke vintage San Francisco, there’s something moving in this week that’s entirely new to the area and musical landscape. The America’s Cup Concert Series at the America’s Cup Pavilion (between Piers 27/29), stricken by neighborhood complaints, finally soldiers forward (but now down to 30 concerts from 40). It’ll be SF’s largest venue — holding up to 9,000 classic rock fans in an outdoor concert bulb connected to the equally maligned America’s Cup. Teamed up with Live Nation, the Pavilion will host a barrage of top 40 acts including Imagine Dragons this weekend, Fri/31, (already sold out).

Then there’ll be Sting, the Steve Miller Band, Counting Crows with the Wallflowers, 311, Train, Sammy Hagar, and it goes on. It’s a rather stale line-up, perhaps best suited for those legitimately excited for the boat races. The youngest group is the Jonas Brothers, after that Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco (all well into their 30s). Perhaps the only really interesting additions are Weezer and the symphony. Here’s hoping the neighbors don’t keep complaining.

 

BAY FEVER

And now, a little spring-cleaning for Tofu and Whiskey. Some Bay Area bands are killing it in late May and June. Dreams in the Rat House (Hardly Art), the explosive new full-length from Oakland trio Shannon and the Clams dropped last week. As noted when the single “Rip Van Winkle” was released, the kings and queen of surfy doo-wop have kept up their hip-shaking guitar lines and voracious vocals with a joyfully trashy edge. There’s also now a mini doc on the band, OutofFocus TV’s “American Music Episode 6: featuring Shannon and the Clams,” which you can check on Youtube and Vimeo.

In it, Shannon Shaw, Cody Blanchard, and drummer Ian Amberson (who quit sometime during filming apparently) struggle to describe their band, which leads to a great video edit that includes snippets of each saying words such as “fantastical, ballads, cozy, weirdo, Muppet, punk, oldies.” shannonandtheclams.com. Song to check: “Rip Van Winkle”

After what seems like an eternity (three years and a brief hiatus) Rogue Wave will release new record Nightingale Floors Tue/4 on Vagrant Records. It’s the band’s fifth studio album, and newest since 2010’s Permalight. On Nightingale Floors, bandleader Zach Rogue and longtime drummer Pat Spurgeon battle out demons (death, personal tragedies) and come out the other end with trusted jangly guitars, Rogue’s delicate vocals that still sound like an old friend telling stories, and Spurgeon’s expert off-time drumming — a sharp new release produced by John Congleton (who also produced Rogue’s solo effort, Release the Sunbird). In addition to Rogue and Spurgeon, Nightingale Floors includes contributions by bassist Masanori Mark Christianson, guitarist Peter Pisano, vocalist Jules Baenziner (Sea of Bees) and Mwahaha’s Ross Peacock on synths.

The record seems to take listeners on a narrated life trip, through “College” and “Figured It Out” to the “Siren’s Song,” finally settling on the inevitable with twinkly “When Sunday Morning Comes” and unhurried “Everyone Want to Be You.” Rogue Waves plays the Independent July 13. roguewavemusic.com. Song to check: “No Magnatone”

And then there’s Oakland’s Mortar and Pestle. On its self-titled new full-length, the band projects a vibe akin to a trippier Little Dragon. There are bouncy keyboard lines and scattered found-sound touches boosted by the lush, dreamy vocals of lead singer Janaysa Lambert. On first single “U.V” there’s even the familiar ping-ping-ping of a classic pinball game, forcing you to picture the full Mortar and Pestle set-up placed neatly between games in a 1980s arcade. The synth-pop trio is also one of the first acts to see release on Metal Mother’s new label-collective, Post Primal, so you know it has her stamp of approval. www.mortarandpestlemusic.com Song to check: “Pristine Dream.”

A chance meeting with the Doors’ Ray Manzarek, RIP

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Ray Manzarek, co-founder and keyboardist of the Doors, died today at 74. Complications from bile duct cancer.

As the master of the spooky-sounding and creepy organ first heard in rock and roll in “96 Tears” or “She’s About A Mover,” Manzarek was both the embellishment and the bottom for Venice, Calif.’s most famous band. They had no bass (live, on records they did). The bass was Ray’s left hand — according to Manzarek, every time they tried to add a bass, the sound became leaden and useless. And so, that oddly springy feel the Doors made real owed as much to Ray as it did their colorful frontman or their jazzy guitarist and drummer.

He also produced X’s first four discs and wonderfully, too — never tried to clean them up or polish them and while his keys were all over their debut, they disappeared afterwards, when the band was better known and more confidant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XzHotB5-To

He was cool. Changed my life too!

When I was 16, my friend Tommy got us backstage passes for the Doors/Dr John gig on the Boston Commons (Tommy knew Chuck Leavell from Florida, Chuck was playing keys with Dr John.)

As Dr John was doing his gris-gris thing onstage, I found myself standing next to Ray Manzarek and as I had a J in me pocket, I sparked her up and passed it to my childhood hero. He and his wife and I finished the reefer.

I couldn’t even talk — not because of the herb, but because I had SMOKED A JOINT WITH RAY FUCKING MANZAREK!!!!!

Thanks for helping me be a kid, Ray. Peace to you.

Ray Manzarek, RIP

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Ray Manzarek, co-founder and keyboardist of the Doors, died today at 74. Complications from bile duct cancer.

As the master of the spooky-sounding and creepy organ first heard in rock and roll in “96 Tears” or “She’s About A Mover”, Manzarek was both the embellishment and the bottom for Venice CA’s most famous band. They had no bass (live, on records they did). The bass was Ray’s left hand–according to Manzarek, every time they tried to add a bass, the sound became leaden and useless. And so, that oddly springy feel the Doors made real owed as much to Ray as it did their colorful frontman or their jazzy guitarist and drummer.

He also produced X’s first four discs and wonderfully, too–never tried to clean them up or polish them and while his keys were all over their debut, they disappeared afterwards, when the band was better known and more confidant.

He was cool. Changed my life too!

When I was 16, my friend Tommy got us backstage passes for the Doors/Dr John gig on the Boston Commons (Tommy knew Chuck Leavell from Florida, Chuck was playing keys with Dr John.)

As Dr John was doing his gris-gris thing onstage, I found myself standing next to Ray Manzarek and as I had a J in me pocket, I sparked her up and passed it to my childhood hero. He and his wife and I finished the reefer.

I couldn’t even talk–not because of the herb, but because I had SMOKED A JOINT WITH RAY FUCKING MANZAREK!!!!!

Thanks for helping me be a kid, Ray. Peace to you.

Shannon and the Clams awaken ‘Rip Van Winkle’

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Our beloved kings and queen of trash rock and doo-wop hybrid Shannon and the Clams released “Rip Van Winkle,” the first single off their upcoming Hardly Art release, Dreams in Rat House (coming May 21).

The song, which features back-up by Magic Trick’s Noelle Cahill, is again the perfect blend of garage pop and beachy surf punk a la the Trashwomen, and has that cool hiccuping guitar effect kicking off the hip-shaking, foot-stomping, hand-clappy new track. As expected, chainsaw vocalist-bassist Shannon Shaw’s distinctive pipes stand out above all else. This all just serves to further excite us for the release of Dreams in Rat House.

Check the new song HERE.

Shaw, vocalist-bassist Cody Blanchard (King Lollipop), and drummer Ian Amberson also this week announced a tour with fellow Bay Area favorite, Mikal Cronin, which takes the bands through SXSW and back. Unfortunately that schedule does not yet include a local show upon return, though that can’t be far behind, right? (Alas, Shannon and the Clams plays its SXSW kickoff last night at Elbo Room.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0PBWuqRrpg

While the new album has yet to produce an official video, this seems like a good time revisit the Shannon and the Clams mini movies we’ve loved since the beginning (many directed by Shaw’s brother, Dan), way back when we just knew of Shaw as of Hunx’s Punkettes, and after the devotion solidified with 2010’s glorious Ruin Christmas EP and 2011’s Sleep Talk LP (1-2-3-4 Go!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5Mk03QVeCg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NrAWAxE5dM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57KUgVsM8rw

On the Rise: Kowloon Walled City

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The line to get in to Kowloon Walled City’s album release show with Golden Void at the Hemlock in early January snaked around the building and into the alleyway. It was undeniably packed, and entirely sold out, with hordes of black-hoodied fans still waiting outside in the rain. A relatively uncommon sight for a night with a few local acts at the divey Tendernob venue.

Plus, Kowloon Walled City has been around for awhile. It was born in 2005, released a handful of LPs, briefly toured with Sleep, and has gained a steady, dedicated following. Yet it took December 2012’s ominous, muscular Container Ships for people to stand up and take notice — and that’s expanded to beyond the Bay Area’s incestuous metal scene. (Though don’t call the noisey rock band straight-forward metal, vocalist-guitarist Scott Evans once told the Guardian; just because it’s heavy, doesn’t make it metal.)

The new album is a thick slab of sludgy hard rock, with, yes, some elements of metal, doomy down-tuned guitars, Evans’ forceful howl, heavy drumming, and inevitable comparisons to the likes of Isis and Unsane. Yet, it’s not like the current musicians of Kowloon Walled City — Evans, Jeff Fagundes, Jon Howell, Ian Miller — are in it to break big; they’re all longtime local players, lovers of the art of creating loud music, especially Evans, who’s also known as the inventive sound engineer at Oakland’s Sharkbite Studios.

Description of sound: Post-partum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L93-wAvwPPY

What you like most about the Bay Area music scene: All music scenes are beautiful. OK, the truth is I love music in the Bay Area, both as a musician and as a recording guy. There are so many great people and bands and venues and it’s great.

Favorite local eatery and dish: Tu Lan tofu pile, RIP.

Who would you most like to tour with: All tours are beautiful.

www.inthewalledcity.com

Party Radar: Red Bull Thre3style hypes up the Bay

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Every year, the musical magi at Red Bull scoop up a gaggle of disparately-styled local DJs and feed them into the hype machine, spitting out a DJ battle blast, surprisingly full of fun and Bay Area pride. Although compared to years past, the upcoming 2013 SF Red Bull Thre3style (Thu/24, 8pm at The Independent, $15) has been scaled back somewhat — only five competitors this year, instead of the usual eight, and all of them are hip-hop/electro heavy dudes — it’s still gonna be a hair-raising time, and a chance to check out some talent outside your micro-niched nightlife comfort zone. 

Plus, the competition is kinda tricky!

Here’s the gimmick: This year’s competitors — D-Sharp, J Espinosa, Dstrukt, Richie Panic, Mei-Lwun — have to include at least three genres in their 15 minute sets (mashups don’t count!), while keeping the crowd pleased. I have seen this go seriously awry in years past, which is part of the general craziness. (The winner gets to travel around and win something big, I forget what.)

Another fun 3style thing — the DJs usually ham it up (and if I know Richie Panic, which I do, mentally intimately, he will realllly turn up the ham), which makes you appreciate how self-effacing a lot of the DJ scene here usually is, despite the oft-bombastic music.

Anyway, I usually balk at branded events, but Red Bull really invested early in local nightlife scenes and brings out actual talent — this ain’t no Rock Star EDM crap, Red Bull gives you wings and standards. Just don’t OD on all the fun, k?

Here are some of my favorite sets from years past =– including one of the final appearances of DJ Solomon, RIP

 

Quarterback sack

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Mz. Grizz is tall and beautiful with a gleam in her eyes that says both I have something funny to add and, if you put a football in her hands, I will knock you over like a freight train hitting bowling pins.

If we played tackle instead of flag football, she would lead the league in yardage and touchdowns, and probably a lot of people would quit. As it is, her area of dominance is the defensive line. And the bowling pins are the opposing team’s O line.

I know I wouldn’t want to quarterback against her. Other hand, if I am totally honest (which I mostly totally am), I haven’t always exactly loved being Mz. Grizz’s teammate either. There’s the generational gap that bebaffles me to most of my teammates at least some of the time, and there was this thing I overheard her say once on the sideline: “I don’t care whether we win or lose,” she said. “I’m in it for the personal glory.”

Which statement bristled me for a while, even though I knew she was saying it to be funny — a twist on it’s how you play the game.

I must have been in a bad mood. Meaning: we must have just lost. Because for me, partially, it is whether you win or lose. That’s what makes it sports. And, in particular, team sports. Supposedly, although spelling is not my forte, there is no I in team. But this was a long time ago.

And, alas, there is an I in time.

Like a lot of our team, Mz. Grizz is a med student. Still, she manages to make more practices than anyone. And games. And she plays and practices –- and eats, it turns out — with an endearingly fierce and bearlike voracity.

Coach’s 35th birthday party was not the first time I got to eat next to Mz. Grizz, but it was the one that won me over. All the way, and in spite of any previously held differences of opinion regarding queer politics or English spelling.

Hers was the biggest plate of food I have seen since the days of Ann’s Cafe. And the way she pinned her ears back (in the parlance of pass-rushing specialists) and tackled it … it earned my undying respect and admiration. It was, in fact, glorious. And I understood.

I mean: first of all, we’re talking Celia’s — which should change its name to Surrealia’s — in San Rafael. I forget what they called the plate, but it had tacos, enchiladas, flautas, chile relleno, steak, beans, rice, and just basically all-things-Mexican all over it. And Mz. Grizz picked up her fork and knife with this super-sexy look, and fucking sacked its ass. I’m not saying it was quick. Or easy. You could tell she was using all her moves: the spin move, the stunt, the club, the rip, the hoop, the inside-out sock…

And those were just the ones that I saw! For the most part my attention was drawn to the wide-screen TV at the opposite end of Celia’s banquet room, on which the 49ers were all-of-the-above-ing it to the Green Bay Packers.

Also I had my own plate to deal with: big, yummy grilled shrimps with beans and rice and a big ball of salad dolloped quite pleasantly, thank you, with pico de gallo.

Everything was great. Warm, fresh-made chips and hot table salsa kept coming, margaritas happened, and Coach presided very thirty-fivishly at the head of the table, until the mariachi band came over from the main dining room behind a small flan with a single lit birthday candle in it.

They sang in Spanish. They sang in English. And by the time Coach wished for another winning season this Spring and blew out the candle, her birthday dessert was mostly melted wax. Yum!

While everyone else was woohooing her, I hugged and high-fived Mz. Griz, who was just then putting the finishing hurt on her quarterback. I think it was called “The Perfecto Special.” Look into this.

“You’re my hero,” I said.

Then, very mysteriously, everyone started disappearing into the restroom in pairs and coming back with each other’s pants and shirts on. Kids! Then they all went bowling across the street, but Hedgehog and I, being old, came home.

CELIA’S

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

1 Vivian, San Rafael

(415) 456-8190

AE/D/MC/V

Full bar