SF Archives — Page 318 of 427 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes

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February 3, 2009

PREVIEW What lengths will you go to for your art? If you’re a castrato it’s probably a sore point. For Mexico’s internationally renowned experimental theater company, Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes (Certain Inhabitants Theatre), it’s the beginning of a lush and lively investigation into the complexities and contradictions of cultural power and refinement. Drawing from a variety of theatrical styles and incorporating multidisciplinary performers, director Claudio Valdés Kuri and writer Jorge Kuri have crafted a time-tripping escapade across three centuries of culture and cruelty.

Siamese twins — a surgeon and opera columnist in a single ungainly suit and two Louis XIV wigs — lead a journey that begins in the decadent 18th century court society of the Old World, in the throes of a circle that fed ravenously on the castrated children of the poor and elevated them to superstardom by the preservation and cultivation of their fine prepubescent sopranos. With Monsters and Prodigies: A History of the Castrati, Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes the company makes its long-overdue Bay Area premiere, courtesy of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in what promises to be a resonant, dramatic outing whose operatic airs — in Spanish and Italian with English supertitles — hit an unfaltering high C for cutting, carnivalesque satire.

TEATRO DE CIERTOS HABITANTES Thurs/5–Sat/7, 8 p.m., $25–$30. Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

The G-Spot

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February 3, 2009

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San Francisco is a great place to get laid. Beginning with the brothels of the frontier era and moving right through history to the gay-rights and free-love movements, we’re a city particularly adept at providing, supporting, and celebrating sexual exploration. Is it a coincidence that our seven-by-seven mile utopia-by-the-sea also happens to be brimming with attractive, talented, and adventurous folks who always seem only a step away from jumping into each other’s beds?

Not that this isn’t also a great place to be in love. With some of the world’s finest restaurants, sexiest art and music, best-jukeboxed dive bars, and easy-to-access outdoor locales, it’s hard to imagine a better date city. And thanks to our open-minded culture, that means all kinds of dates: homo, hetero, poly, furry, you name it.

In this year’s installment of G-Spot, we attempt to straddle (pun intended) love and lust. We’ve also compiled a list of our favorite parties, events, and classes for singles and couples.

But wait! That’s not all! We’re also excited to launch our brand-spanking new (and yes, we’ll probably talk about spanking) SEX SF blog, featuring all that’s sexy, steamy, and salacious about the Bay, including our guide to hosting your very own orgy. Call it the Guardian‘s valentine to you (and yes, we expect you to put out).

Molly Freedenberg, G-Spot editor

>>Love potion
10 aphrodisiacs that’ll jump-start your sex life
Ann Sims

>>Letter your love
Select sentimental stationery instead of pricey presents
Laura Peach

>>Isn’t it ironic?
Hipsters and the emergence of altporn
Juliette Tang

>>Valentine’s Day events
Sexy, sweet, and snarky ideas for singles and couples
Molly Freedenberg

Cruising Craigslist: This week’s best personals

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February 3, 2009

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Each week, Justin Juul combs the SF Craigslist Personals and Missed Connections for true gems that prove there’s enough love for everyone.

Doesn’t it suck when you see a little or morbidly obese person at the mall and, before you even have a second to feel extra confident at their expense, you get blindsided by a wave of guilt? I mean, you may be a little chubby or short, but at least you can get laid sometimes, right? At least you have friends! These folks must live in a private and sexless hell with nothing but their love-smothered pets to keep them from pulling the plug. And the worst part is, there’s nothing they can do about it. What a cruel, cruel world! Well, you can stop with the mind fuck. If anything, you should be jealous.

After all, you and I have to go to ridiculous lengths just to get noticed. Buying cool clothes, getting tattoos, and pretending to like Animal Collective are only the beginning. Sometimes we even have to become artists or writers or musicians … anything just to stand out a little. [Ed Note: good luck with that.] But not fabulous human anomalies. All they have to do is turn on a computer and start scrolling through ads, because for every midget with a pee fetish, and for every fat lady with a mustache, there are at least 50 people in San Francisco who are down for showering them with love.

And they’re all on Craigslist.

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Midget Fetish – m4w – 21 (Your Place)
Reply to: [redacted]
Date: 2009-01-23, 2:13AM PST

Ok, plain out and simple: I wanna fuck a midget. I gotta know what it’s like. If you’re a lil’ person, or if you know a lil’ person who wants to hook up, let me know ASAP.

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Only Anorexic Chicks Need Apply – 27 (Ingleside / SFSU / CCSF)
Reply to: [redacted]
Date: 2009-01-31, 12:02PM PST

This is what I want: an anorexic chick. Hell, I won’t discriminate, bulimic chicks are pretty hot too. If you want to split hairs, sure, chicks on diets or just with creative eating habits, you’re cool people to me too. If you have an A cup, legs almost as thin as your arms and wear a size 0, you’re my kind of girl. If Lindsay Lohan is fat compared to you, that’s a plus. If you wear kids clothes because adult clothes don’t fit you, even better. As far as I’m concerned, the skinnier, the better. And this isn’t a snub against meatier girls either. I just don’t find you attractive. Please don’t take it personal and/or send me hate emails about how my request is inherently sexist or perpetuating some sort of hegemonic power structure against women. Seriously, I don’t care. I like what I like. Simple as that.

Hot sex events this week: 2/4-2/11

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February 3, 2009

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Compiled each Wednesday by Breena Kerr.

Dr. Carol Queen talks multiple orgasms on Fri/6

>> Live Action Sex Education! With Tracy Bartlett
Pre-register by going to: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/54759
Hands-on workshop covering hand and oral techniques, anatomy, and communication skills. Bring a partner, blanket and pillow. Tracy Bartlett has a master’s degree in counseling, and has taught numerous classes and workshops at universities, events and sex shops around the country.
Wed/4, 6:30pm-9:30pm, $50-$60 per couple
The Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF.
415-255-1155
www.centerforsexandculture.com

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>> Red Hot Romance 101 (After Hours Workshop)
This interactive workshop is for anyone who wants to rev it up and create a night to remember. Promises to teach the art of hot romance and make sex way, way better.
Wed/4, 8pm-10pm, $25 if pre-registered, $30 for drop-ins
Good Vibrations (Valencia)
603 Valencia, SF.
415-522-5460
www.goodvibes.com

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>> Sex Workers Writing Workshop with Gina de Vries
Experienced and beginning writers welcomed: an experience for those who have worked in any area of the sex industry to respond to a prompt, write, and receive non-judgmental feedback.
Wed/4, 7pm
$10-$20 sliding scale
The Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF.
415-255-1155
www.centerforsexandculture.com

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>> Dr Carol Queen on Multi-Orgasmic Sex
Sexpert, educator, author, and activist Dr Queen leads a discussion on sexual practices and how to achieve multiple orgasms.
Fri/6, 5:30pm, free
Good Vibrations (Berkeley)
2504 San Pablo Ave., Berk.
1-800-289-8423
www.goodvibes.com

Objects of Obsession: Special V-Day treats for your sweet

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February 3, 2009

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SFBG’s Laura Peach rounds up local items and experiences to die for

Valentine’s Day gift giving can be tricky. You need to choose something that’s romantic and significant, yet appropriate for your relationship status and your budget. These special treats for your Valentine sweet are sure to please.

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1. Stay sexy

The Alanya Room

Book a night in San Francisco’s sexiest hotel rooms, the SugarLuxe and Alanya at Hotel Des Artes ($69-$189). Yes, Playboy and pornography inspired these female artists to paint scantily clad, larger than life women on the walls. Yet nothing about the pop-artesque murals seems sleazy. To us anyway.

The SugarLuxe Room

Hotel des Artes, 447 Bush, SF, 415-956-3232; www.sfhoteldesartes.com

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2. Get fresh

All natural, Berkeley based personal care company Nancy Boy has concocted a sumptuous signature body oil that is perfect for massages ($21). Stock up at the clean, calming Hayes Valley store and let your hands get to work.

Nancy Boy, 347 Hayes, SF, 415-552-3636; www.nancyboy.com

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Why newspapers won’t die

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February 2, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

But before I get into that:

Doesn’t the Chronicle’s new design look awful? I mean, it’s cluttered and backward-looking and I don’t think it’s going to save THAT newspaper from its financial problems. Why doesn’t the Chron just take local news seriously, cover San Francisco, and hire just one, just one progressive urban political columnist to balance the suburban Chuck Nevius?

Okay: But newspapers aren’t going to die. I try to explain this to people all the time. I tell students that journalism is going to be around forever, even if we stop killing trees to make paper and the internet morphs into a consensual hallucination or people screw sockets into their brains to learn things or whatever. There will still be communication, and some of it will still involve journalists.

I don’t always agree with Bill Keller, the editor of the NY Times, but in a recent column answering readers’ questions, he got this one just right:

First, there is a diminishing supply of quality journalism, and a growing demand. By quality journalism I mean the kind that involves experienced reporters going places, bearing witness, digging into records, developing sources, checking and double-checking, backed by editors who try to enforce high standards. I mean journalism that, however imperfect, labors hard to be trustworthy, to supply you with the information you need to be an engaged citizen. The supply of this kind of journalism is declining because it is hard, expensive, sometimes dangerous work. The traditional practitioners of this craft — mainly newspapers — have been downsizing or declaring bankruptcy. The wonderful florescence of communication ignited by the Internet contains countless voices riffing on the journalism of others but not so many that do serious reporting of their own. Hence the dwindling supply. The best evidence of the soaring demand is the phenomenal traffic to the Web sites that do dependable news reporting — nearly 20 million unique monthly visitors to the site you are currently reading, and that number excludes the burgeoning international audience. The law of supply and demand suggests that the market will find a way to make the demand pay for the supply.

And it doesn’t take that much money to create a news operation on the web. The giants in the industry (and some of the not-so-giants, like the SF Chronicle) may fall by the wayside, and we may see much more web-based local reporting from a larger number of smaller and more diffuse news outlets (already happening in SF) and that won’t be such a bad thing.

But newspapers, in the traditional sense of organizations that pay staffers to report and deliver news and charge people (in our case, by showing them ads) to access it … that’s not going anywhere.

Super Ego: Hearts for queer Arab dancers

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February 2, 2009

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By Marke B.

I just got word about another installment of the fantastic BiBi party, happening this Saturday night at Club Six. BiBi’s the number one top happening for queer folks of SWANA (Southwest Asian–Northern African) descent — ladies, the ladies who go are fucking gorgeous — and their admirers. DJs Emancipacion, Josh Cheon of Honey Soundsystem, and Massood wil bring their exhilarating blend of traditional and contemporary Arab, Persian, Indian, and Latin hits, because basically if it’s brown, they’re down. Palestinian hip-hop duo NaR will be performing, as will fave-rave dancer Cherry Gallette. Part of the proceeds will benefit Middle-East Children’s alliance.

Lucky for club kids like me (who also happens to be a big queer Arab!) the party will take place at the same time as dread bass monthly Surya Dub’s huge 2-year anniversary bash that I wrote about in my last Super Ego clubs column, also at Club Six in the basement and main room for a separate fee. All-night belly dancing, Palestinian hip-hop, and bowel-shaking dubstep beats? I’m all over it.

BiBi
Sat/7, 9pm-afterhours, $10/$15
Club Six
60 Sixth St., SF.
www.clubsix1.com
www.myspace.com/bibisf

Read more SFBG Noise blog clubs coverage here and more Super Ego clubs columns here.

Super Ego: Let’s pARTy

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February 1, 2009

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By Marke B.

2k9’s gallery party season is heating up — last Saturday, I jetted from the art-fag-elite-packed Jonathan Solo opening at Catherine Clark Gallery to the huge “What’s the Big Idea?” shindig at YBCA, just in time to see thousands of expressive-oriented types raise their hands and clap along with the NonStop Bhangra troupe as they showed them how to punch the the air, Punjabi-style.

Next up on the big calendar is this Friday eve’s “Parlor Games” at the de Young, celebrating that museum’s ongoing Yves St. Laurent exhibit, hosted by one of the SF underground’s most scintillating performers/choreographers, Fauxnique.

Fauxnique and friend — arty, non?

Fauxnique was one of Trannyshack’s darlings (her revival of her Elton John “Butterfly” tribute number, complete with full ballet corps and huge outspread wings, brought the house down at last year’s Trannyshack Kiss-Off party. She’s the top female drag queen in town — not drag king, but drag queen, as in faux queen. Yes, it’s confusing.) From 7:15-7:45 in the Piazzoni Murals Room, there’ll be charades, musical chairs and a “Proust Questionnaire,” and Fauxnique and some ultra-chic friends will perform numbers meant to invoke both the asthmatic Parisian author/drama queen’s social demimonde and Laurent’s delicate and lovely designs.

Street Threads: What the heck are you wearing?

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February 1, 2009

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto hits the streets each week to scope out SF’s best looks. View her last installment here.

Jennifer, Van Ness Muni station

Terry, Mission and Virginia

Kate, Prospect and Cortland

Welcome to SEX SF!

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January 31, 2009

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Hey there, horny toad. It’s Marke B. from SFBG beckoning you hither into the Guardian‘s new SEX SF blog — our local-focussed, sex-positive, Internetical adventure into the land of wanton lust (and education!). Feel the luxurious sheen of its fishnets on your eyeballs.

We felt there was a mighty big gap in the SF blogosphere, and wanted to fill it with something intelligent, playful, Bay-minded, omnisexual, curious, scandalous, irreverent, and respectful of the extreme diversity of the local sex scene. Oh, and lots of fun. This is our “soft launch,” our birds and bees beta, our test-icle if you will. (Look, it’s late and I’m short on comic material. Throw a hot tomato at me.) Join us each day as our sensual endeavor grows and grows — but don’t forget your safety gear, you little devil.

If you have any suggestions or tips, email here. Now, let’s get it on, and pardon our excited glitches.

Photo of monthly wet jock contest at The Rod by Darwin Bell

Nu Garage Rock: Catching Nodzzz and Sic Alps

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January 30, 2009

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USA and Bay byways: Sic Alps’ “Semi-streets.”

Where to find our current garage-rock faves? Cover kids Nodzzz – see this week’s story in the Guardian – will be playing a show with Lake and Little Wings March 11 at Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF; (415) 923-0923. It starts at 9 p.m. and is $7.

Nodzzz will also be performing with Blank Dogs, Naked on the Vague, and Brilliant Colors March 29 at the Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF; (415) 550-6994. Call for the time and price.

Also worth a looky-loo, as pointed to here: Sic Alps, who play a warehouse show with Thee Oh Sees and Pins of Light. Artwork by Skott Cowgill will also be on display. It goes down Feb. 13 at OCD Warehouse, 758 Natoma, SF. Art and food happen at 8 p.m., bands begin at 9pm, and it costs all of $5.

A marvelous party: SF Symphony can class up your new year’s

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January 29, 2009

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A latex avalanche to begin the new year… Oh, SF Symphony, you really shouldn’t have!

It’s enough to make you rue all those New Year’s Eves past spent in sweaty bars and crowded living rooms. And I would imagine after ringing in a new decade while watching a troupe of masquerade dancers twirl to a Viennese waltz, watching the ball drop in Times Square loses some of that “center of the universe” feel.

But you can do just that tomorrow night. Tickets are still available for the San Francisco Symphony’s New Year’s Eve Masquerade Ball– an gala evening that you won’t wake up regretting the next morning.

Onstage will be a mix of pieces from divergent time eras. Aforementioned baroqueness will ensue with a performance of some Johann “The Waltz King” Strauss, Jr.’s Vienesse pieces, with solos by tenor Alfie Boe, soprano Layla Claire, and 15-year old violin prodigy Chad Hoopes.

symphony 1 1209.jpg
Does solo violinist Chad Hoopes get to stay up til midnight?

As the program waxes on, the ditties turn more modern, including some by that dapper Noel Coward, including “I Went to a Marvelous Party,” a song of “frantic addle headed search for amusement” written by the British composer in the 1930’s after attending a highfaulutin’ soirée in the French Riviera.

And don’t think they kick you out on the stroke of midnight either- after the symphony performance, attendees will get down in the lobbies and hallways of the Davies Symphony Hall with complimentary bubbly, “savories” and music by 80s cover band Tainted Love. Plus a balloon drop when ’10 hits? Just the ticket for your yearly dose of ‘Auld Lang Syne.’

SF Symphony New Year’s Eve Masquerade Ball
Thurs/31 9 p.m., $80-195
Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness, SF
(415) 864-6000 www.sfsymphony.org

Bay hip-hoppers Zion I to launch ‘The Takeover’

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January 29, 2009

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zion i poster sml.jpg

News from Bay Area hip-hop duo Zion I’s camp: Their new record, The Takeover, arrives Feb. 17, along with a show at 330 Ritch. Word has it that there will also be a Feb. 13 listening party at the pair’s studio-office, the Zoo. Sounds like the group is reaching out and expanding – even during belt-tightening times.

ZION I
Feb. 17, 10 p.m., call for price
330 Ritch, SF
(415) 541-9574
www.330ritch.com

Newsom’s self-serving bike proposal

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January 29, 2009

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Newsom rode a rental bike as we chatted during Bike to Work Day a few years ago.
By Steven T. Jones

I was already cranking up my criticism of Mayor Gavin Newsom in this post when he announced his anemic bike-sharing proposal – 50 bikes for San Francisco versus the 20,000 in Paris, from where he made the announcement – so I wondered if perhaps I was being a little hard on the proposal. You know, poisoned by my own venom.
It seemed pretty ridiculous to spend $1 million to start a program that nobody could rely on considering there would be less than 10 bikes at each of the five locations that they’re proposing. So I listened to the chatter on the CarFree list (people who promote biking and would support a legitimate bike-sharing program), checked sites such as SF Streetsblog, and did some interviews.
And so now I can say, with great confidence, that this is indeed a really dumb and self-serving idea that has everything to do with Newsom being able to claim he started something sexy like bike sharing and nothing to do with actually promoting bicycling in San Francisco.
Hell, Blazing Saddles (the rental company that lends Newsom a ride for Bike to Work Day, the one day a year that he pedals) rents 200-700 bicycles per day in San Francisco depending on the season and weather, according to someone I spoke with there. So how exactly is the Clear Channel-administered 50 bikes going to make any difference?
MTA spokesperson Judson True did defend the proposal when I called him, telling me the 50 bikes was, “based on Clear Channel’s experience in other cities getting people used to the idea.” Clear Channel runs the only other one in the U.S., Washington DC’s shitty little 150-bike program, unlike the thousands of bikes in real programs in cities around the world. True also said the high cost is based partly on renting private property because the bike injunction, which will be lifted later this year, prohibits bike improvements on public property.
Which, to me, sounds like even more proof that Newsom decided to roll this out now because it fits into his larger political plans, beating other U.S. cities like New York that are doing actual planning to roll out real bike sharing programs. And so it goes with Mayor Press Release.

P.S. See you all at Critical Mass tomorrow.

Look! SF Newspapers have discovered the Internet!

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January 29, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

This is a wonderful little moment in history. I particularly like the fact that the Examiner editor says “we’re not going to make any money off this.”

And of course, also the comment

This crazy machine could revolutionize the way in which millions of men beat off

Local Artist of the Week

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January 28, 2009

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LOCAL ARTIST Brian Wasson

TITLE Honey (digital c-print, 30 by 24 inches, edition of five)

STORY "Start every day with a mile and get it over with." — W.C. Fields

BIO Brian Wasson became an Eagle Scout in 1992. He received his MA from Arkansas State University in 2002 and his MFA at San Francisco Art Institute in 2004. He has shown solo at Little Tree Gallery and Ping Pong Gallery.

SHOW "Last Wash." Through Feb. 20. Ping Pong Gallery, 1240 22nd St., SF. (415) 550-7483, www.pingponggallery.com

WEB www.bwasson.com

Bunny ballin’

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January 28, 2009

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Nobunny loves you — that much is clear by the end of the first track on his debut, Love Visions. But where did the masked maven of caffeinated garage-punk come from? I met with the leather-jacketed, now Bay Area-based "half-rabbit, half-jackalope, half-human" at an Oakland bar, angling for two rabbit-earfuls of explanation. It’s hard not to be curious: the aforementioned Visions, released last year by 1-2-3-4 Go! and Bubbledumb, motorbiked outta left field to become 2008’s most delightful lo-fi slab of clambake party jams. Even heavy-hitter Jay Reatard recently designated it as his new favorite record "to jump around in [his] underwear and eat pizza in bed to!"

Eight years ago, Nobunny was conceived as "The No-Money Bunny" near the mountains west of Tucson, where, after having cleaned up a hard drug habit, the soon-to-be bunny-eared dude thought he ought to become "a rabbit Elvis impersonator … no joke!" He followed a peculiar familial precedent for masked musicianship — mom with the Moos Brothers and the Blues Chickens, dad donned punk garb in the Blues Burgers, and Nobunny himself prefers to remain anonymous — and busked on Tucson’s avenues before his first paid gig: an April 2001 show at Chicago’s Fireside Bowl on Easter Sunday. As it turned out, it was also the day Joey Ramone died — a strangely appropriate DOB for a project that would pick up the Ramones’ pink punk shoelaces and tie them to what Nobunny calls a "no boundaries, all id" ‘tude.

After early gigs opening for Blowfly and the Black Lips ("There was no competition for the cool slots in Tucson," Nobunny says), the live performance bug has since had him by his oft-visible balls. "Anything from a tape deck to a nine-piece band" backs him up as he cranks out tunes with a rousing, familiar-feeling bubblegum jubilance. He admittedly enjoys "Frankenstein-ing" together fragments of songs he loves, but make no mistake: such sugary album cuts as "I Am a Girlfriend" and "Church Mouse" are the keyboard-drum grind of Nobunny and nobody else!

Since the LP’s release, he has put out a 7-inch single, "Give It to Me"/"Motorhead With Me" (HoZac, 2008), and when we spoke he alluded to several new releases on the way, including an new album. "Not a single review of the other album could apply to the next one," which he said will be "all acoustic," powered by handclaps, beer bottles, and stomped-on phone books. For a good time, look up Nobunny’s line — it’s probably scrawled on a bathroom wall somewhere.

NOBUNNY

With Thee Makeout Party

Feb. 4, 8 p.m., $5

Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

www.theknockoutsf.com

>>MORE GARAGE ROCK ’09

Snap!

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January 28, 2009

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Who says dumb can’t be a whole lotta fun? "One of our friends called us ‘bubblegum for skinheads,’" says Carlos Bermudez of his band Photobooth. "I don’t go for the Oi! thing myself. But I guess it is bonehead bubblegum."

Ah, but what boneheady pop bliss — bouncing along in its own happy three-minute/three-chord oblivion, whether live and thriving at last year’s Budget Rock fest or documented for garage posterity à la "Pretty Baby." Studded with "ba-ba-ba-bas" and propelled by an inexorable Troggs-y drone, the track will come out in a month or two as a 7-inch on Raw Deluxe.

Another tuneful case in point: "Da Me Tus Besos," recently released as a single by Daggerman — a number Bermudez, 25, describes as a "cheesy Spanish glitter rip-off."

"My Spanish is really, really bad," confesses the guitarist-vocalist. "I was trying to get my mom to work out the Spanish, which is embarrassing in itself, because I feel like I should know it by now." Yet simultaneous grammatical and lyrical perfection was not to be. "I had to make it grammatically atrocious to make the syllables fit," Bermudez adds.

No need to belabor it. Instead, how about a blurry B&W shot at Photobooth’s origins? Bermudez’s last group, the Mothballs — the de facto house band at West Oakland’s Cereal Factory, the site of many a fun summer barbecue show — had split, and his pal Jason Patrone, ex-vocalist for FM Knives, had just moved to the Bay Area from Sacramento. "We were bored because we didn’t have anything going on at the time," Bermudez recalls, and so one night in late 2007 the two drunkenly conceived a project named after a song by the Fevers.

Housemate Matthew Melton was pulled into the group before veering off to concentrate on his other combos, the Bare Wires and Snakeflower 2, which Bermudez also plays with. Now with Robbie Simon on drums and Tim Hellman on bass, songwriters Bermudez and Patrone figure an album is their next step — though god forbid Photobooth grows too solemn or careerist.

"It’s really boring when people take themselves so seriously," says Bermudez matter-of-factly. "The cool thing about garage rock is that it’s not really self-conscious about ripping off other people. It makes it more of a party thing than a cool thing."

PHOTOBOOTH

With Buzzer and Die RotzZz

Sat/31, 8 p.m., call for price

Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

www.theknockoutsf.com

>>MORE GARAGE ROCK ’09

Rage onstage

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January 28, 2009

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kimberly@sfbg.com

Yep, you too are essential to the band, especially your super-sweet triangle solos. But roughly speaking, garage rock — be it in, out, or lurking merrily on the fringes — often comes down to one visionary or prime mover, though in the tight local music scene, one never rules out the cosmic convergence of several git-‘er-done leader types.

GREG ASHLEY — THE GRIS GRIS, THE MIRRORS, SIR LORD VON RAVEN

The Gris Gris may be dormant, but the life this producer, solo artist, and guy-with-seemingly-a-jillion-bands-up-his-sleeve pulls out of his organ and guitar with Oakland’s psychy-garage Sir Lord Von Raven makes us sit up, rub our eyes, and wiggle our bee-hinds a little harder as we fetch ourselves another PBR.

www.myspace.com/sirlordvonraven

DREW CRAMER — THE MANTLES, PERSONAL AND THE PIZZAS

"I Can Read" — an excellent reminder. Personal and the Pizzas is not only the funniest joke band — and Dictators jab/mash note — in town, but Mantles dude Drew Cramer can’t stop writing catchy songs, even in the service of a Bowser-riffic group that began as an idea for a TV show. "We were going to do a sitcom — The Young Ones–style," Cramer told me this fall. "It just turned into a band. The idea is we sit around all day eating pizzas, listening to the Stooges, and drinking beer." Makes you wonder about the next warp in the more ethereal weave of the Mantles.

ANDY JORDAN — THE CUTS, THE TIME FLYS, BUZZER

The Cuts appeared to go out with a bang following From Here on Out (Birdman, 2006) and the Time Flys seemed to have flown, but don’t lose hope for this manic son of a record-store man: Buzzer takes its cues from the wild-child kicks of ’70s glitter punk and messes with hole-in-the-head stranger dangers à la "Trepanation Blues."

Buzzer with Photobooth and Die RotzZz. Sat/31, 8 p.m., call for price. Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. www.myspace.com/buzzeroakland

TINA LUCCHESI — THE BOBBYTEENS, THE BACI GALOOPIS, TOP 10

The lady keeps the up-dos swinging at Down at Lulu’s, but she also finds plenty of time to pour a lotta love into the rock scene. Top 10 makes us wanna mix cornrows in our pop charts.

MATTHEW MELTON — SNAKEFLOWER 2, PHOTOBOOTH, BARE WIRES

Photobooth is now in the mustachioed, Oakland-by-way-of-Memphis rock ‘n’ roll maven’s past, Snakeflower 2 is still simmering, and Bare Wires — the Jay Reatard photog’s old band with his River City Tanlines cohort Alicia Trout — has risen once more, peopled by Paul Keelan and ex–Time Flys member Erin Emslie. Looking forward to BW’s Artificial Clouds LP (Tic Tac Totally).

Bare Wires with Static Static and Fun Blood. Feb. 5, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.myspace.com/thebarewires

RUSSELL QUAN — THE MUMMIES, THE DUKES OF HAMBURG, THE BOBBYTEENS, THE COUNT BACKWARDS, THE PHANTOM SURFERS, THE FLAKES, THE MERSEY WIFE BEATERS

He’s the OG of garage rock in the Bay, a madman on drums — and the dude can also whip out a mean rock ‘n’ roll DJ set. Does he get extra points because he’s a genuine garage rocker? Auto repair is his forte when he isn’t bashing out beats and generating positive vibes.

TY SEGALL — TRADITIONAL FOOLS, THE PERVERTS

The one-man rock-out machine fronts the Traditional Fools, temped in the Mothballs, and recently saw his super-energized self-titled solo debut come out on John Dwyer’s Castle Face label.

Feb. 6, 5 p.m., $5. University of San Francisco campus, SF. www.myspace.com/tysegall

SUPERCHARGED: MORE BANDS

MAYYORS

Everyone loves a mystery: the Sacto band has almost zero Web presence. Also no interviews and nada on promos. According to their kinda-sorta rep, Mark of the mount saint mountain (mt.st.mtn.) label, both of Mayyors’ mt.st.mtn. singles, Marines Dot Com and Megans LOLZ, were sold out in days and re-presses for show sales evaporated just as quickly. Tough, love. Yet somehow the chatter — the old-school mouth-to-mouth variety — is on, thanks to the blitzkrieg force of tunes like "Airplanes," bruising ultra-lo-fi Brainbombs allusions, and memorable performances like their set at 2008’s Budget Rock. About as garage rock as the Coachwhips or the Hospitals, Mayyors sports FM Knives’ Chris Woodhouse on guitar and Sexy Prison’s John Pritchard on the mic. Oh, and me likee the outfit’s soundtrack to Jay Howell’s The Forest City Rockers Motorcycle Club animation.

THE OKMONIKS

The Tucson, Ariz., terrors have a way of bending an organ to their will — and word has it they’re moving to the Bay Area. www.okmoniks.com

THE PETS

I’m in love — with the boy-gang vocals, delivered with the proper nasality and snot levels, on the Oakland band’s latest LP, Misdirection (Static Impulse). Midwestern proto-punk in the Dead Boys mode and bad-boy fast-loud-hard à la the Saints, with a dab of MC5 to do ya. With Buzzer and Bare Wires. Feb. 21, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, SF. www.myspace.com/thepetsoakland

SIC ALPS

The SF duo always had the pop chops and ideas but somehow they just keep getting better. Garage rock gone noisy and classic rock-y at the same time. www.sicalps.com

>>MORE GARAGE ROCK ’09

Gloves on

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January 28, 2009

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

PREVIEW Leslie Seiters entered college as a visual artist — and left it as a choreographer. Or at least that’s what her MFA diploma from Ohio State University says. Seiters prefers to call herself a director. "I am allergic to ‘choreography,’<0x2009>" she says from her home in San Diego. "When something looks ‘choreographed,’ it turns me off."

Seiters, who lived and worked in the Bay Area between 2002 and 2007, has nothing against the craft of choreography, of course. In fact, her own works are exquisitely crafted. But she doesn’t want to see the hand of the maker because she feels it keeps her from entering a piece and having it speak to her in an unmediated manner.

Seiters left Ohio right after graduation and relocated to San Francisco, where she worked and performed with Jo Kreiter, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Jess Curtis, and Sarah Shelton Mann. All the aforementioned artists have a strong commitment to contact improvisation, which is characterized by its immediacy and the performers’ ability to remain present in the moment — an approach that has influenced Seiters’ own work. The physicality of things — an object, a move — continually fascinates her. Seiters differs, however, from her colleagues — and just about any other dancer working in the Bay Area — in her acute and exceedingly refined interest in using objects beyond their function in dance as props.

In a Seiters’ piece — she calls them installations — the edge between the animate and inanimate material is often blurred. She might have dancers double each other’s movements so precisely — as they did in such tiny danger (2003) and an attic/an exit, which premiered at last year’s San Francisco International Arts Festival — that they begin to look as if they had been set in motion by an outside force. Or they might appear like a single image that, for some mysterious reason, split in two only to merge again. "I love repetition," she explains. "This may go back to my visual background, where I would sculpt by wrapping and wrapping or cutting and cutting over and over again."

At the same time, the objects — all quite ordinary — often acquire a life of their own. Sometimes this can be quite disconcerting. When two dancers slide their arms into suspended jackets, the garments begin to manipulate the women. Dozens of suspended teacups keep up their clinking chatter long after their users have left them behind. Huge shoes move people who step into them. Dancers in paper dresses recede into and are swallowed by identically patterned wallpaper. And what about the woman on a swing, seen through a hallway, who never alters her trajectory? At what point does she become the pendulum of some unseen time machine?

Seiters’ work is both immensely playful and physically sturdy in the way she treads that thin line — she confesses to an affinity with magical realism — between the everyday and the fantastic. The process allows the familiar to become more so, even as it grows strange. For her, dance must not be pinned down, but kept open-ended. "I like it when dancers can take a movement, and turn it into a question," she says.

For the Bay Area premiere of Incidental Fear of Numbers at CounterPULSE this weekend, Seiters and her Little Known Dance Theater is partnering with Lux Borealis, a modern dance company from Tijuana, Mexico, whose "intelligence and physicality in the way they use weight and motion" Seiters admired. It’s her first full-evening performance and her most ambitious work yet. Included as part of the performance will be lots of tops and at least one very tall stack of yellow pages with a turntable on top. She also loves the sound of gloves on a cardboard floor.

INCIDENTAL FEAR OF NUMBERS

Fri/30–Sat/31, 8 p.m., $10–$15

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.counterpulse.org

Revved up on garage rock

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January 28, 2009

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Grease monkeys gotta scratch their coconuts and wonder: why have the words garage rock become so dirty? Especially when a garage-rock explosion of sorts seems to be going off all around us.

Few want to be tagged as such — though their affection for three chords; adoration of the square-one pleasures of guitar, bass, and drums; and love of a classic pop hook are out there for all to see. Does retro spell lame-o in a year beset with cultural, economic, and political change?

Not if you recall the last late-’90s/early-’00s garage rock resurgence, which arrived on the heels of a boom in tech-sector/dot-com creativity and coincided with a burgeoning home-recording underground — a rough, eerie corollary of the ’60s-era moment when British Invasion bands sparked a zillion garage-rock combos. No coincidence, I believe, that as digital home recording and online musical dissemination made it possible for every guy’s and girl’s band to reach a wide audience, so too did a world open up for vinyl and analog lovers of the most hidden and once-unheard-of musical niches, who were suddenly able to find newbie listeners.

So perhaps change, of the most DIY variety, is the very reason why so many bands in the Bay Area — and out past our waters where Wavves, Vivian Girls, and Jay Reatard ripple — are tapping into the garage-rock vein that oldsters like Legendary Stardust Cowboy (who bunks down in the South Bay) would recognize as similar to their own. Do you have an affinity for the early blues-based rock ‘n’ roll that can be traced from Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins to the Rolling Stones and the Kinks to their alternately upbeat and haunted progeny the Troggs, the Seeds, the 13th Floor Elevators, and San Jose’s Chocolate Watchband, then onto ’80s revivalists like the Lyres, the Scientists, the Cynics, and the Fuzztones, and further on to late-’90s wavers like the White Stripes, the Dirtbombs, the Detroit Cobras, and the Von Bondies?

Noisy, psychy, punky, gay, straight, sweet or grating — however you twist it, the current nu–garage rock explosion in the Bay is nowhere near as easy to tag, bag, and classify. How do you reconcile the ear-burning blast of Mayyors with the sweetly contrarian kicks of the Nodzzz’s "I Don’t Wanna (Smoke Marijuana)"? The latter’s parentheses are crucial here because theirs is a cry against easy conformity, really, rather than drugs ("I don’t wanna smoke marijuana… I just wanna get high / On another drug!"). Subverting the white-straight-boy paradigm also seems to be part of the plan for outfits like Hunx and His Punx, and the LaTeenOs.

Eric Friedl — owner of esteemed Memphis garage rock label-shop Goner Records and ex-member of the Oblivions — has noticed the rock ‘n’ roll energy surge coming off of SF: Sic Alps and the Oh Sees played 2008’s Gonerfest, and Goner releases by Ty Segall and Nobunny are on the horizon. "For whatever reason we like the bands coming out of there," Friedl says of the Bay. "In the ’90s there seemed like a lot was going on, and then it kind of died out, but yeah, I think it goes in cycles. People got tired of the garage-rock bands in the late ’90s, and it took ’em another five or six years to get back to straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll."

Geoffrey Ellis, who puts out the zine Sadkids and documented Bay Area bands’ excursions out to Gonerfest, agrees. "It seems like in the last few years [garage rock] has hit its stride where it hadn’t existed for a while and was pretty relegated to undergroundish types of scenes," says the graphic designer whose garage rock images will be exhibited as part of "Rock Show," a group photo exhibit. "But now it’s just taken off everywhere."

Still, for all the new activity and faces, one of the pleasures of garage rock remains the breaking out of musty ole vinyl and listening to the San Jose–born Count Five’s "Psychotic Reaction," the Standell’s "Try It," and the Human Beinz’s "Nobody But Me" — and wondering where my Music Machine LP is. The last so-called garage-rock revival gave you the impression that the bands weren’t so much listening to the, er, originals as much as each other — many of those groups’ general raw sound seemed to be the main reason why they were dubbed garage rock, apart from some true believers and record collectors in Detroit. Garage rock was a somewhat commercial brand last time around. But this current surge seems content to ride tides far from marketable shores, melding garage rock’s ruff ‘n’ tough joys with surf riffs, hardcore aggression, proto-metal heavitude, or psychedelic exploration.

These bands seem closer to the scenario that Don Waller wittily sketched out in the liner notes to a Nuggets ’80s reissue: "The typical punkadelic band came from some suburban Anywheresville and consisted of one kid who’d grown up copying Chet Atkins licks on his uncle’s hollow-body, another who’d had 10 years of classical piano lessons, a hyperactive woodshop dropout on drums, a lead singer with a range of three and a half notes, and a bass player brought in for his ability to attract girls."

The garage may be gone, if altogether nonexistent, for many in the densely populated Bay Area. But considering that even the purportedly first garage-rock combo, Tacoma, Wash.’s fresh-faced Wailers (who made a big impression on the Kingsmen with their own "Louie Louie"), wryly made a big deal of recording in a "proper environment … namely a recording studio," in the liner notes of Out of Our Tree (Etiquette, 1966), the hands-on wherewithal of today’s bands isn’t so far from that of yesteryear’s ensembles.

"Pushin’ Too Hard"? For a while there "everyone was too self-conscious," opines Carlos Bermudez of Photobooth and Snakeflower 2, "but now there are a lot of bands that are doing well and playing sloppy again — all the garage stuff that people seemed to have grown out of. Schlocky fun party music is starting to happen again."

ROCK SHOW

Through April 7; reception Sun/1, 6 p.m.

Rite Spot Café

2099 Folsom, SF

www.ritespotcafe.net

NOISE ALLOYS

MAN/MIRACLE AND EAGLE AND TALON

The former plunges fists-first into ’00s-y sing-along fun and an ’80s synth-sensitivity vibe; the latter duo into grrrly lo-fi. With Railcars. Thurs/29, 9 p.m., $5. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

MATT AND KIM

Where’s the dance party? It’s wherever the pair’s primal pop is hopping. Their new Grand (Fader) sneaks up on you with its larger-than-life lowdown. With Hawnay Troof. Mon/2, 8 p.m., $10. Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com

>>MORE GARAGE ROCK ’09

The mirror stage

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January 28, 2009

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“13 Most Beautiful….” trailer

It’s become almost rote to tag Andy Warhol — that "most financially astute and commercially successful of all the members of the New American Cinema," to quote Winston Wheeler Dixon — as an exploiter of superior but less rich and famous artists, a claim often paired with the declaration that there is nothing left to say about him.

This past week I was thinking about Warhol’s Sleep (1963). The traditional doctrine about that five-hour study of John Giono in slumberland is that it introduced Warhol’s deployment of boredom, an effect that still lingers in feature-length "art" cinema today, where the worst directors are boors, while the best (Tsai; Apichatpong) lead people through trance or dream states. True. And yet — is there a gesture more romantic than watching your lover sleep?

The title of "13 Most Beautiful … Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests" nods to the baker’s dozen format Warhol used to organize and present the boys and girls who stepped in front of his Bolex for almost three minutes slo-mo projected to become four. (This type of tactic prompted plum-phrasing Parker Tyler to declare that Warhol’s films tend "to move at major physical retardation.") There are 300 or so such tests to choose from, and it’s hard not to wish that Dean and Britta’s live soundtrack accompanied some less obvious, more artistic portrait subjects. But I’m looking forward to seeing Mary Woronov vamp for Warhol, whom she felt the impulse to protect, according to her peerless — and scarifying — 1995 Factory account Swimming Underground. And I wonder if Freddy Herko’s beauty will leap off the screen.

"Black and white is easier," said Warhol, who likened watching a film to looking out a window. "In black and white, it’s just a picture." Acts of potent iconography accomplished by sidelit, inky close-up, the screen tests — not to be confused with 1965’s Ronald Tavel-scripted Screen Test #2 — demonstrate Warhol’s talent for simplifying where his peers might complicate. "13 Most Beautiful" also primes any interested audience for yet further adventures in pop this year — the Lou Reed screen test is included (along with screen tests of the other members of the Velvet Underground) in the upcoming "Warhol Live" exhibition at the De Young Museum.

13 MOST BEAUTIFUL … SONGS FOR ANDY WARHOL’S SCREEN TESTS

Tues/3, 8 p.m., $25

Palace of Fine Arts

3301 Lyon, SF

www.sffs.org

Punch drunkle

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January 28, 2009

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Hola, age of change. My 2K9 nightlife motto: less musing, more cruising — just watch out for the bruising, child. A few blurry dawns ago, out of nowhere, I got bopped full-on in the kisser by some drunk fool outside the club. Tragedy struck.

Luckily, my impeccable cheekbones are fashioned from silky Teflon and my major Ukrainian modeling contract survived intact. But it was a good reminder, a "slap in the face," if you will — and you will: always be aware of your surroundings and don’t drink yourself too unfunctional. Hear me alike, dear macho bar queens, PBR fixie pixies, Bebe-clad bachelorettes, darling dragzillas, electro-spandex starlets, popped-collar wannabros, and pretend hip-hop producers. Let’s be careful out there. For more tips on surviving your midnights out, San Francisco’s guardian angels of the dark, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, are, as usual, eager to provide at their Web site under “features.” Now, let’s get it on.

————-

THE ID LIST

TINGEL TANGEL

This glorious cabaret monthly brings a touch of Weimar Berlin to San Francisco by way of NYC nightlife impresario Earl Dax. This time around, wacky Seattlean hostess Dina Martina wilkommens tunesmith Spencer Day, space-gother Kiddie, harpist Deirdre Egan, and more, ol’ chum. Wed/28, 9:30 p.m., $16. Café Du Nord, 2174 Market, SF. www.tingeltangelclub.com, www.cafedunord.com

SPECIAL DISCO VERSION

Part of LCD Soundsystem never dies? Not if the indie dance juggernaut’s members stay true to their retro-underground roots. LCD drummer Pat Mahoney keeps it fresh by pumping up the past as he DJs the West Coast debut of this roving club classic. Cheekbone bonus: a special Hercules and Love Affair DJ set. Thurs/29, 9 p.m., $10-$15. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC SHOWCASE

Don’t let the serious name put you off — that UK queen of intel freak-uencies, BBC Radio’s Mary Ann Hobbs, is flying in to curate a dance explosion of razor-sharp local talent, including Ghosts on Tape, Lazer Sword, Kid Kameleon, Disco Shawn, Shane King, and more. Now, if only the BBC would archive her streaming weekly broadcasts for more than a month. Thurs/29, 9:30 p.m., $5. 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com

HOTTUB

The electro-rap trio of trouble destroyed the Guardian‘s Best of the Bay 2008 party and sent Jello Biafra to the hospital. Now they’re inaugurating a new monthly by two solid party producers, Popscene vs. Loaded, at the Rickshaw — and celebrating their latest record release. Watch out for blood puddles. Fri/30, 10 p.m., $10. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

AMON TOBIN

Proto-dubstepper? Future-glitch engineer? Global grooves genius? Let’s just say all three, then drool all over this singular Brazilian legend’s laptop. Stunned noggin-nodders at last year Treasure Island fest know he’s made a seamless live transition from vinyl to electronics — and teases serious dance breaks from the wizardly ambience. Fri/30 and Sat/31, 9 p.m., $23. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.independentsf.com, www.hacksawent.com

SUPPERVISION

Burning Man meets alternaqueer for a multimedia pajama party, with trippy visuals and outré drag performances. Wait! Don’t stop reading! Video artist III is truly talented, and his projections, combined with edgy queen antics, add up to more than the sum of my whole first sentence. Honey Soundsystem brings the noise. And, yes, wear pajamas. Sat/31, 9 p.m., $12 in pajamas, $20 without. Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF. www.supperclub.com

HERR-A-CHICK

Too many puns to count in the name, too many too-hot queer rock bigwigs involved to miss this new live showcase and dragstravaganza monthly at DNA. Charlie Horse’s Anna Conda teams up with the Trans Am boys and Revolver’s Lucy Borden for alterna-excess, with the Ex-Boyfriends and Ethel Merman Experience all plugged in. Feb. 4, 10 p.m., $5. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com

JUICY LUCY

Swank Brazilian resto Bossa Nova, in the old CoCo Club space, just opened its lusciously remodeled basement up for late-night affairs — and is going big from the get-go with this kaleidoscopic affair. Detroit techno slayer Mike "Agent X" Clark headlines, with soulful spinner David Harness, funky househed Greg Eversoul, and live jazziness from Lovelight Liberation. Feb. 6, 9 p.m., $10. Bossa Nova, 139 Eighth St., SF. (415) 558-8004.

2562 AND THE GASLAMP KILLER

Those ambassadors of dread bass, Surya Dub, are bashing for their monthly club’s second anniversary, with Dutch dubstep (Dutchstep?) heavyweight 2562, who couches his rumble in deep techno soundscapes. Also reverbin’: Los Angeles low-low lover the Gaslamp Killer, who can rip a slice of perilous psy-hop quite rightly. Local boy Lud Dub leads the congratulatory proceedings. Feb. 7, 9 p.m., $15. Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com

Counting chickens

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January 28, 2009

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› le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS When it’s cold and dark in the trees, and drippy. When I get cabin feverish. When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when Weirdo the Cat camps out on my forehead and taps my cheeks all night to make sure I don’t drift … when my witchy, woodsy ways bite my own bad ass and instead of chicken farmerly I start to feel isolated and scared, that’s when my bathtub steps up. Or, more literally, I step in.

If you ask me, I’ve got the sweetest bathing situation in the whole Bay Area. Yeah, rats in the chicken coop, yeah, skunks under my shack, yeah, my clothes and me smell like smoke all the time (at best), yeah, it’s been three days since I saw another human being, yeah, raiding Dumpsters for firewood, yeah, washboard washing and an indoor clothesline … but at least I get to take a bath like this. Outside. Smell of eucalyptus, sight of my raspberry-tipped toes against a California-blue sky, the creaking of redwoods, taste of popcorn, or chicken.

And then the sound of chicken too, a live one making that very particular sound live ones make when something has teeth in them. Or, in this case, talons. A hawk’s got my chicken.

But a farmer who bathes out of doors has a say in this, see? Indoor bathtub, or worse, a shower … forget about it. Your girl is someone else’s dinner. There was a corner of a woodpile and a wall of a coop between me and the action. I couldn’t even see my adversary, at first, let alone get a good angle on it, from where I soaked. But if there’s one thing the English-speaking predators of west Sonoma County will tell you, it’s that the pretty little kook in the old white boat does not throw like a girl. She’s got toys, shampoo bottles, stiff-bristled brushes, bars of soap, and a big, slow, loopy curveball that she’s not afraid to use, behind in the count or behind a wall and a woodpile.

This is me talking again, and I mean to tell you (in case you don’t know from personal experience): there’s something enormously gratifying about spooking off four-foot wing-spanned, razor-beaked, bloodthirsty birds of prey with a rubber ducky. You wouldn’t think it possible, but then, you haven’t seen my rubber ducky. It’s black with a pink mohawk and an A-for-anarchy tattooed to the side of its head. Not no standard-issue Bert and Ernie model, no.

So it turns out that big bad hawks are every bit as skittish about anarchy as, say, my dad, or most people. Fwop fwop fwop fwop … and awayyyyy.

Who knew?

But this isn’t the Nature Channel. Sockywonk, who happens to have given me my punk rocker rubber ducky, moved and then moved again, as I was saying. Me and her little hockey player boyfriend Flower "The Fury" Flurry helped with the haul. Two weekends in a row! And after the second one Socky took us to dinner. Technically, we didn’t know she was going to pay, or we’d have held out for sushi instead of ducking into the first cheapo Mexican/Salvadorean joint we saw, which was Restaurante Familiar, Sockywonk’s new neighborhood being the Excelsior District.

It’s a cozy, comfy, cheerful, friendly, tasty little place. The fried plantains were great. The black beans were great. The pupusas were great. Chicken soup, great. Enchiladas with green sauce, great.

The chicken tamale was great. It had whole chickpeas in it, and was wrapped in a banana leaf instead of a corn husk. That’s Salvadoran style. Great.

Everything was great, but for my money (or, for the sake of accuracy, Sockywonk’s) the tamale is the way to go, because for $5.75 it comes with beans, rice, and salad. And that’s more than a meal. It’s a meal and a nap.

I count chickens in my sleep. It’s not like counting sheep, or blessings, for one thing because I’m already asleep. I don’t need help going to sleep. Thanks to Weirdo the Cat, I don’t need help waking up, either. I count chickens because, in my heart of hearts, I suppose, they are exactly what I have.

RESTAURANTE FAMILIAR

Sun.–Thu.: 10 a.m.–10 p.m.; Fri.–Sat.: 10 a.m.–11 p.m.

4499 Mission, SF

(415) 334-6100

Beer and wine

V/MC

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.