Television

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Schedules are for Wed/28–Tues/3 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. “Cut and Run: Evolution of the Mind, Body, and Medium,” short films, Sat, 8.

BAY MODEL 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito; www.tiburonfilmfestival.com. Free. Still Bill (Baker and Vlack, 2009), Tues, 6.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; (510) 841-4824, www.bfuu.org. Free. Saving the Bay: Marvel of Nature, Thurs, 7:30.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; (415) 668-6384. $10. “Rocksploitation with Citizen Midnight:” Wild At Heart (Lynch, 1990), Sat, midnight.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Wed-Thurs. See film listings. •Rosemary’s Baby (Polanski, 1968), Fri, 7, and See No Evil (Fleischer, 1971), Fri, 9:35. “Midnites for Maniacs: Macho Man-iacs Quadruple Feature:” Nighthawks (Malmuth, 1981), Sat, 2; Bloodsport (Arnold, 1987), Sat, 4:15; Big Trouble in Little China (Carpenter, 1986), Sat, 6:30; They Live (Carpenter, 1988), Sat, 9:30; “Secret Midnite Film,” Sat, 11:45. “Cinematic Titanic:” War of the Insects (Nihonmatsu, 1968), Tues, 8. Tickets ($30) at www.sfsketchfest.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. Anton Chekhov’s The Duel (Koshashvili, 2010), call for dates and times. The Girl Who Played With Fire (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (Stern and Sundberg, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. Let It Rain (Jaoui, 2010), call for dates and times. Farewell (Carion, 2009), July 30-Aug 5, call for times. “San Francisco Opera Grand Opera Cinema Series:” “La Rondine by Giacomo Puccini,” Thurs, 7 and Sat, 10am. Emma’s Time Machine: Adventures in Time and Space Burtt, 2010), Sun, 6:30. Tickets ($20-40) benefit the Marin History Museum.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Anderson, 2009), Fri, 8; Jaws (Spielberg, 1975), Sat, 8.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Akira Kurosawa Centennial:” One Wonderful Sunday (1947), Wed, 7; Sanjuro (1962), Sat, 6:30; Scandal (1950), Sat, 8:30. “A Theater Near You:” Lourdes (Hausner, 2009), Thurs and Sun, 7. “Criminal Minds: True Crime Cinema:” The Lodger (Brahm, 1944), Fri, 7; The Boston Strangler (Fleischer, 1968), Fri, 8:45. “Modernist Master: The Cinema of Francesco Rosi:” More Than a Miracle (1967), Sun, 5.

PARAMOUNT THEATRE 2025 Broadway, Oakl; 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com. $5. King Kong (Cooper and Schoedsack, 1933), Fri, 8.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-9. Harold and Maude (Ashby, 1971), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:15. Stop Making Sense (Demme, 1984), Thurs-Sat, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sat, 2, 4). The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Sat, midnight. El Topo (Jodorowsky, 1970), Sun-Mon, 7, 9:35 (also Sun, 2, 4:30). Dead Man (Jarmusch, 1996), Aug 3-4, 7, 9:25 (also Aug 4, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-11.50. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010), Wed, 7:15, 9:15. The Lottery (Sackler, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. “Arab Film Festival Presents:” Gaza-strophe: The Day After (Abdellah), plus “Gaza’s Winter,” short films about Gaza and Operation Cast Lead, Thurs, 7. The Cremaster Cycle (Barney, 1995-2002) plus “De Lama Lamina” (Barney, 2004), July 30-Aug 5. Check web site for schedule.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.sfindie.com $11.50. “Another Hole in the Head Film Festival”: Death Kappa (Haraguchi, 2010), Thurs, 5; Mutant Girls Squad (Iguchi, 2010), Thurs, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Something From Nothing: Films on Design and Architecture:” The Greening of Southie (Cheney, 2008), Sun, 2.

Quick Lit: July 21-July 27

David Talbot
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0
Quick Lit: July 21-July 27

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

Classic SF Noir, Cooking from the Farmer’s Market, sustaible design in the California Academy of Sciences, holistic tips for the  mind and home, Richard Walter, Yogiraj, and more.

Wednesday, July 21 

Cooking From the Farmer’s Market
Jodi Liano presents her book that helps home chefs identify, select, and prepare over 100 types of fruits and vegetables fresh from the market.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

Deep Medicine
Surgeon and holistic healer Dr. William Stewart explains how to tap into the mind’s power to heal the body.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Laurel Village
3515 California, SF
(415) 221-3666

Share This!
Deanna Zandt discusses the importance of social media as tools for change.
7:30 p.m., free
Books Inc. Marina
2251 Chestnut, SF
(415) 931-3633

Trust
Australian journalist and author Kate Veitch discusses her new novel about one woman’s journey to define what it means to her to be a “good woman,” balancing being a daughter, sister, wife, and mother.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688

Thursday, July 22

“A Roof Full of Wild Flowers”
As part of the Bone Room Presents natural history lecture series, California Academy of Sciences Senior Curator and Botanist Frank Alameda will talk about the living, growing, 2.5 acre roof on the new California Academy of Sciences building. Alameda will discuss the construction of the roof and the part that it plays in the sustainability of the museum as a whole.
7 p.m., free
Bone Room
1573 Solano, Berk.
(510)526-5252

“Down with Stereotypes”
Alison Owings will read from her two books, Hey, Waitress! The USA from the Other Side of the Tray and the forthcoming Indian Voices / Listening to Native Americans, and discuss how the tales of Beulah Compton, a waitress union leader in Seattle in the 1940’s and 1950’s, and Tom Phillips (Kiowa), a powwow emcee and drug counselor at the Friendship House American Indian Healing Center, have in common.
7 p.m., free
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia, SF
www.mtbs.com

Essentials of Screenwriting
Veteran screenwriter and legendary professor at UCLA’s film school, Richard Walter will read from his new book filled with his tricks of the trade that have led to many award-winning films.
7 p.m., free
Borders
400 Post, SF
(415) 399-1633

Feng Shui Your Mind
Holistic healers Jill Lebeau and Maureen Raytis share their strategies for decluttering and destressing your life.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

San Francisco Noir 2 vs. Los Angeles Noir 2
Hear from the editors of the lastest installments in the Noir series, San Francisco Nior 2 and Los Angeles Noir 2: the Classics. Featuring San Francisco Noir 2 editor Peter Maravelis, contributor Eddie Muller, and special guest Cara Black and Los Angeles Noir 2 editor Denise Hamilton.
7 p.m., free
Cantina
580 Sutter, SF
www.akashicbooks.com

The Thousand Autumns of Jocob de Zoet
David Mitchell brings us a new novel, set in coastal Japan in 1799, that follows a Dutch accountant that loses himself in a world of Japanese intrigue and danger.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688

Saturday, July 24

“The Bard in Bollywood”
Shakespearean scholar, Gitanjali Shahani, will explore the many adaptations, manifestations, and appropriations of Shakespeare in popular Hindi cinema using clips from Shakespeare Wallah, Maqbool, and Omkara to illustrate how Bollywood has re-imagined Shakespeare through the ages.
7 p.m., $8-$10 sliding scale
Artists’ Television Access
992 Valencia, SF
www.thirdi.org
 
“Fly Trap Theater”
This kid-friendly presentation by staffers from the Conservatory of Flowers offers an up close look at carnivorous plants and how they attack and eat bugs. There will even be a fly trap dissection, so onlookers can see the plants’ trapping mechanisms, followed by bug and plant puppet crafts.
2 p.m., free
Paxton Gate’s Curiosities For Kids
766 Valencia, SF
(415)252-9990

Himalayan Kriya Master Yogiraj SatGurunath Siddhanath
Attend this gathering where Yogiraj will discuss life from an enlightened viewpoint and share his mission of Earth peace through self peace.
7 p.m., $20 suggested donation
St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church
500 DeHaro, SF
1-866-YOGI-RAJ

Redstone Labor and Culture Walk
Learn about the history behind the murals in the lobby of the Redstone Building, a building that was the headquarters of the 1934 General Strike, followed by a guided walk through the vibrant surrounding neighborhood highlighting the Mission’s art, ethnic history, and class struggle.
1 p.m., free
Meet at Redstone Building
16th St. and Capp, SF
RSVP at (415) 841-1254

Sunday, July 25

Barak Obama and the Jim Crow Media
Author Ishmael Reed will read and discuss his new book, Barak Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the Nigger Breakers, about how Obama’s opponents use modern reincarnations of the ugly demons of slavery-era tactics to “break” black people.
2 p.m., free
Koret Auditorium
San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin, SF
(415) 557-4400

Laborfest Book Fair and Poetry Reading
All day long, the Mission Cultural Center will feature multiple rooms where authors, activists, educators, and organizers will present labor themed panel discussions, book discussions, poetry readings, historical lectures, tabling, socializing, and more.
9:30am-5pm, free
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
2868 Mission, SF
www.laborfest.net

Tuesday, July 27

Death is Not an Option
Suzanne Riveca’s new collection about girls and women in a world where sexuality and self-delusion collide.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

Found in Translation Book Group
Once a month, Scott Esposito of the Center for the Art of Translation and the Quarterly Conversation hand-selects fiction from around the world for a spirited discussion. Learn about the classic novel by Honoré de Balzac, Eugénie Grandet, and his epic 100- book series Comedie humaine which provides an immense panorama of post-Napoleon France.
7 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688

“Jesse Schell: Visions of Gamepocalypse”
Hear game designer and CEO of Schell Games Jesse Schell discuss the social, cognitive, and technological trends in computer game design and use.
7:30 p.m., $10
Novellus Theater
YBCA
701 Mission, SF
(415) 978-2787

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Schedules are for Wed/21–Tues/27 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $8-10. "3rd I Presents: The Bard in Bollywood: Shakespeare Re-Invented," presentation with film clips by Gitanjali Shahani, Sat, 7.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; (415) 668-6384. $10. "Rocksploitation with Citizen Midnight:" Phantom of the Paradise (De Palma, 1974), Sat, midnight.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. •Night of the Iguana (Huston, 1964), Wed, 2:30, 7, and Boom! (Losey, 1968), Wed, 4:50, 9:20. •A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan, 1951), Thurs, 2:10, 7, The Fugitive Kind (Lumet, 1959), Thurs, 4:25, 9:25. •Ghostbusters (Reitman, 1984), and 1941 (Spielberg, 1979), Fri, 9:05. San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Sat-Tues. See film listings.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Played With Fire (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (Stern and Sundberg, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. The Sun Behind the Clouds (Sonam and Sarin, 2010), call for dates and times. Let It Rain (Jaoui, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. Anton Chekhov’s The Duel (Koshashvili, 2010), July 23-29, call for times.

"FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK" This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. The Blob (Yeaworth, 1958), Fri, 8; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Yates, 2009), Sat, 8.

JACK LONDON SQUARE East lawn, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. "Waterfront Flicks:" Star Trek (Abrams, 2009), Thurs, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100 (reservations required). $10. "CinemaLit: Musicals With a Message:" The Harmonists (Vilsmaier, 1997), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Akira Kurosawa Centennial:" No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), Wed, 7; Yojimbo (1961), Sat, 6:30. "A Theater Near You:" Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson, 1970), Thurs, 7. "Criminal Minds: True Crime Cinema:" Cell 2455, Death Row (Sears, 1955), Fri, 7; I Want to Live! (Wise, 1958), Fri, 8:45. "Modernist Master: The Cinema of Francesco Rosi:" Illustrious Corpses (1976), Sat, 8:40; Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979), Sun, 7.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-9. Freaks (Browning, 1932), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:15. "TV Carnage," Thurs, 7:15, 9:30. The Good, The Bad, The Weird (Kim, 2008), Fri-Sat, 7, 9:40 (also Sat, 2, 4:30). Harold and Maude (Ashby, 1971), July 25-28, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sun, 2, 4; July 28, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-11.50. "SF Indie Presents: Another Hole in the Head Film Festival," Wed-Thurs. See www.sfindie.com for schedule. Daddy Longlegs (Safdie and Safdie, 2009), Wed-Thurs, call for times. The Killer Inside Me (Winterbottom, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. "Wallace Stagner Environmental Films:" Fresh (Joanes, 2009), Thurs, 6.

"TEMESCAL STREET CINEMA" 49th St at Telegraph, Oakl; www.temescalstreetcinema.com. Free. Ready Set Bag! (da Silva and Jacobs, 2008), Thurs, 8. With free popcorn and live music.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.sfindie.com $11.50. "Another Hole in the Head Film Festival," horror and grindhouse films, July 23-29.
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Behind the Burly Q (Zemeckis, 2010), Thurs-Sat, 7:30; Sun, 4 and 6. "Something From Nothing: Films on Design and Architecture:" "wow + flutter" (2009), Sun, 2.

On the Cheap listings

David Talbot
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0

P>On the Cheap listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THURSDAY 22

RitLab Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; (415) 655-7800. 6pm, $5. Roll up your sleeves and create art with your friends at this weekly installment of the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s D.I.Y. craft workshop focusing on personalized amulets that celebrate womanhood. Featuring snacks, drinks, creative guidance, and free materials.

BAY AREA

“A Roof Full of Wild Flowers” Bone Room, 1573 Solano, Berk.; (510)526-5252. 7pm, free. As part of the Bone Room Presents natural history lecture series, California Academy of Sciences Senior Curator and Botanist Frank Alameda will talk about the living, growing, 2.5 acre roof on the new California Academy of Sciences building. Alameda will discuss the construction of the roof and the part that it plays in the sustainability of the museum as a whole.

FRIDAY 23

Black Rock Roller Disco SOMArts, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 863-1414. 8pm; $7 in disco or playa garb, $10 no costume, $5 skate rental. Skate to some old school funk and roller disco with the Black Rock Rollers and help raise funds to bring a roller disco rink to Burning Man 2010. Participants must be 21 and over and Black Rock Roller Disco is not responsible for alcohol related crashes.

BAY AREA

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakl.; (510) 465-6400. 8pm, $5. Enjoy a true vintage movie experience complete with period newsreels, cartoons, previews, live music from the Mighty Wurlitzer organ, and audience participation games at this screening of E.T. in the classic, art deco Paramount Theater.

Ransanble! Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakl.; www.raratoulimen.com. Fri. 6pm-9:30pm, Sat. 11am-9pm, Sun. Noon-6pm; free-$20. Gather with dancers, musicians, community leaders, scholars, activists, dance and music educators, linguists, cultural and food enthusiasts and supporters of Haiti for this Haitian arts and culture festival featuring film screenings, dance workshops, Haitian cuisine, art, lectures, performances, Kreyol language classes and more.

SATURDAY 24

“The Bard in Bollywood” Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF; www.thirdi.org. 7pm, $8-$10 sliding scale. Shakespearean scholar, Gitanjali Shahani, will explore the many adaptations, manifestations, and appropriations of Shakespeare in popular Hindi cinema using clips from Shakespeare Wallah, Maqbool, and Omkara to illustrate how Bollywood has re-imagined Shakespeare through the ages.

“Fly Trap Theater” Paxton Gate’s Curiosities For Kids, 766 Valencia, SF; (415)252-9990. 2pm, free. This kid-friendly presentation by staffers from the Conservatory of Flowers offers an up close look at carnivorous plants and how they attack and eat bugs. There will even be a fly trap dissection, so onlookers can see the plants’ trapping mechanisms, followed by bug and plant puppet crafts.

Redstone Labor and Culture Walk Meet at Redstone Building, 16th St. and Capp, SF; RSVP at (415) 841-1254. 1pm, free. Learn about the history behind the murals in the lobby of the Redstone Building, a building that was the headquarters of the 1934 General Strike, followed by a guided walk through the vibrant surrounding neighborhood highlighting the Mission’s art, ethnic history, and class struggle.

Urban Youth Arts Festival Precita Park, Folsom at Precita, SF; (415) 285-2287. 1pm-6pm, free. Over 2,000 square feet of portable wall space will be open for artists of all ages to express themselves with free paint, brushes, and aerosol paint cans to get things started. There will also be mural performances, live music, breakdancing, spoken word performances, and free refreshments.

SUNDAY 25

Prepare for the Playa Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF; www.preparefortheplaya.com. Noon-7pm, free. Over 60 burner businesses and designers will be showcasing their playa specific products and services, including lights, faux fur, goggles, dust masks, costumes, sexy playa outfits, and more. There will also be a fashion show, how-to demonstrations for playa survival, virgin burner makeovers, and more.

Laborfest Book Fair and Poetry Reading Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; www.laborfest.net. 9:30am-5pm, free. All day long, the Mission Cultural Center will feature multiple rooms where authors, activists, educators, and organizers will present labor themed panel discussions, book discussions, poetry readings, historical lectures, tabling, socializing, and more.

Symphony in the Park Dolores Park, Dolores at 18th St., SF; www.sfsymphony.org. 2pm, free.Pack a picnic basket and bring your friends and family for the San Francisco Symphony’s free concert in Dolores Park, including a special tribute to Mexico with conductor Alondra de la Parra to celebrate the bicentennial of the independence of Mexico.

Up Your Alley Dore Alley at Folsom, SF; www.folsomstreetfair.org/alley. 11am-6pm, $5 suggested donation. If you like bondage, animal role play, kink, leather straps, whips, paddles, latex outfits, suspension, and hardcore BDSM pastimes, than the Dore Alley street fair is for you! This smaller, more gay male-focused event features demonstrations, kinky vendors, and local DJs setting the mood.

BAY AREA

Last Sundays Fest Telegraph between Bancroft and Dwight, Berk.; www.lastsundaysfest.com. Noon-7pm, free. Enjoy a whole day jam packed with East Bay culture at this street festival featuring live indie pop and rock music, craft, food, and contemporary merchandise vendors, children’s exhibits, and more.

For Lit, Talks, and Benefits listings, visit the Pixel Vision blog at www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision.

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Schedules are for Wed/14–Tues/20 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $5-10. “OpenScreening: Free NYC 2009,” Thurs, 8. “Short Movie Revolution,” Fri, 8. Why Isn’t Chris von Sneidern Famous? (McNamera, 2009), Sun, 8. All events co-presented by the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; (510) 841-4824, www.bfuu.org. Free. Defamation (Shamir, 2009), Thurs, 7:30.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; (415) 668-6384. $10. “Rocksploitation with Citizen Midnight:” Little Shop of Horrors (Oz, 1986), Sat, midnight.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-20. •Mildred Pierce (Curtiz, 1945), Wed, 7, and Leave Her to Heaven (Stahl, 1945), Wed, 9:10. “San Francisco Silent Film Festival:” The Iron Horse (Ford, 1924), Thurs, 7; “Amazing Tales from the Archives: Lost and Found Films,” Fri, 11:30am (free admission); A Spray of Plum Blossoms (Bu, 1931), Fri, 2; Rotaie (Camerini, 1929), Fri, 6; Metropolis (Lang, 1927), Fri, 8:15; “The Big Business of Short, Funny Films,” with Pete Docter in person, Sat, 10am; “Variations on a Theme: Musicians on the Craft of Composing and Performing for Silent Film,” Sat, noon; The Flying Ace (Norman, 1926), Sat, 2; The Strong Man (Capra, 1926), Sat, 4; Diary of a Lost Girl (Pabst, 1929), Sat, 6:30; Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Christensen, 1922), Sat, 9:30; “Amazing Tales from the Archives: First the Bad News … then the Good!”, Sun, 10am (free admission); The Shakedown (Wyler, 1929), Sun, noon; Man With a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929), Sun, 2:30; The Woman Disputed (King and Taylor, 1928), Sun, 4:30; L’heureuse mort (Nadejdine, 1924), Sun, 7:30. For more information, visit www.silentfilm.org.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Played With Fire (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. OSS 117: Lost in Rio (Hazanavicius, 2009), call for dates and times. Touching Home (Miller and Miller, 2009), call for dates and times. “San Francisco Opera: Grand Opera Cinema Series:” Don Giovanni, Thurs, 7 and Sat, 10. Blackmail (Hitchcock, 1929), Mon, 7:15. With a score performed by Alloy Orchestra (tickets for this event, $15).

DELANCEY STREET SCREENING ROOM 600 The Embarcadero, SF; http://action.eff.org/ninapaley. $30. Sita Sings the Blues (Paley, 2009), Tues, 7. With Nina Paley in person; benefit for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Cartoon Art Museum.

FORBIDDEN ISLAND TIKI LOUNGE 1304 Lincoln, Alameda; www.forbiddenislandalameda.com. Free. “Forbidden Thrills: Mermaid Mania!”: •Night Tide (Harrington, 1961), Mon, 7:30, and Mermaids of Tiburon (Lamb, 1962), Mon, 9:15.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Stealing America, Vote By Vote (Fadiman, 2008), Wed, 7:30.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Akira Kurosawa Centennial:” •The Most Beautiful (1944), and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail (1945), Wed, 7; Seven Samurai (1954), Sat, 7. “A Theater Near You:” Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969), Thurs, 7 and Sun, 7:10. “Modernist Master: The Cinema of Francesco Rosi:” Salvatore Giuliano (1961), Fri, 7; The Moment of Truth (1965), Fri, 9:05; Hands Over the City (1963), Sun, 5.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. The Secret in Their Eyes (Campanella, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9:35 (also Wed, 2). Wild in the Streets (Shear, 1968), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:20 (also Sat, 2, 4). Lolita (Kubrick, 1962), Sun, 2, 5, 8, and Mon, 7:30. Freaks (Browning, 1932), July 20-21, 7:15, 9:15 (also July 31, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-11.50. “SF Indie Presents: Another Hole in the Head Film Festival,” through July 22. See www.sfindie.com for schedule.

“TEMESCAL STREET CINEMA” 49th St at Telegraph, Oakl; www.temescalstreetcinema.com. Free. The Beard Club (Lukitsch, sneak preview), Thurs, 8. With free popcorn and live music.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.newpeopleworld.com/films. $8-10. “Samurai Saga Vol.1: From Classic Noir to New Colors:” Samurai Rebellion (Kobayashi, 1967), Wed, 4:30; Fri, 4:15; and Sat, 7; Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron (Gosha, 1976), Wed-Thurs, 7, and Sat, 3:15; Three Outlaw Samurai (Gosha, 1964), Thurs, 4:45; Fri, 7; and Sat, 1; Twilight Samurai (Yamada, 2002), Sun, 11:20, and July 22, 4:30, 7; The Hidden Blade (Yamada, 2004), Sun, 1:50; Tues, 7; and July 21, 4:15. Love and Honor (Yamada, 2006), Sun, 4:20; Mon, 7; and Tues, 4:30. Yamazakura: The Cherry Tree in the Hills (Shinohara, 2008), Sun and July 21, 7; Mon, 4:50.

VOGUE 3290 Sacramento, SF; www.lolsf.org. $10. “LOL-SF: A Celebration of Comedy On-Screen,” comedy films with celebrity presenters, through Thurs/15.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Something From Nothing: Films on Design and Architecture:” Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio (Douglas, 2010), Sun, 2.

Quick Lit: July 7-July 13

David Talbot
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0
Quick Lit: July 7-July 13

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

“RADAR Reading Series”, “Why there are words,” naked ladies, the poetics of resistance,  Alison Arngrim, “Monthly Rumpus”, and more.

Wednesday, July 7 

A Poetics of Resistance
Author Jeff Conant will read and discuss his new book, A Poetics of Resistance: The Revolutionary Public Relations of the Zapatista Insurgency, an engaging study for organizers to understand how to develop their messages of bottom-up revolution.
7 p.m., free
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia, SF
www.mtbs.com

Breast Strokes
Authors Cathy Edgett  and Jane Flint present their inspiring story about two friends who help each other through the diagnosis of breast cancer.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

Intergenerational Writers Lab
A unique literary workshop for emerging writers featuring readings and performances by Lorna Dee Cervantes, Ben Fong-Torres, Leticia Hernandez, Genny Lim, and the 2010 IWL participants: C. Adán Cabrera, Emilie Coulson, Lyndsey Ellis, Marisa Gedney, Bill Gong, Meldy Hernandez, Nancy Larson, Page McBee, Ruby Rain and Natalia Vigil.
7 p.m., $5-$20 sliding scale
Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia, SF
www.theintersection.org

“RADAR Reading Series”
Attend this showcase of underground and emerging artists and writers featuring Ryka Aoki de la Cruz, Diane di Prima, Mica Sigourney, and Tony Tulathimutte. Hosted by Michelle Tea.
6 p.m., free
San Francisco Pubic Library
Main Branch
100 Larkin, SF
www.radarproductions.org

Thursday, July 8

California Rocks
Join Katherine Baylor for a reading and discussion of her new book, California Rocks: A Guide to Geologic Sites in the Golden State.
6 p.m., free
University Press Books
2430 Bancroft, Berk.
(510) 548-0585

Flood Earth
Species extinction expert Peter Ward describes what the world will look like in 2050 and beyond.
Books Inc. Marina
2251 Chestnut, SF
(415) 931-3633

Sometimes Too Hot the Eye of Heaven Shines
Attend this reading and release party for Ryka Aoki’s new book, with readings by Ali Liebegott, Jusin Chin, and Ryka Aoki.
7 p.m., free
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia, SF
www.mtbs.com

To Have Not
Author Frances Lefkowitz shares and reflects on her own life of poverty.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

Unlikely Allies
Author Joel Richard Paul weaves together a fascinating account of three people who, each for his own reasons, connived, betrayed, and spied to help win the revolution for the Americas.
6 p.m., $12
Mechanics’ Institute
57 Post, SF
(415) 393-0100

“Why There Are Words”
This installment of the “Why There Are Words” literary series asks authors to weigh in on what the word “accident” means to them. Featuring Elissa Bassist, editor and essayist from The Rumpus, Glen David Gold, author of the bestselling novel Carter Beats the Devil, Joshua Mohr, author of the novel Some Things that Meant the World to Me, Anne Raeff, author of Two Serious Ladies and Clara Mondschein’s Melancholia, Jason Roberts, author of A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler, and Tatjana Soli, author of The Lotus Eaters.
7 p.m., $5
Studio 333
333 Caledonia, Sausalito
(415) 331-8272

Friday, July 9

“Poets and Writers on the Depression Era”
Part of LaborFest 2010, hear poets and writers speak on the struggle of working people to survive in this desperate world.
7 p.m., free
Kaleidoscope Gallery
3104 24th St., SF
www.laborfest.net

Saturday, July 10

The Butterfly Mosque
Hear the first American Muslim woman to become a professional comic book writer, G. Willow Wilson, discuss her new book, The Butterfly Mosque: A Young Woman’s Journey to Love and Islam.
6 p.m., $7
ICCNC
1433 Madison, Oakl.
(510) 219-2431

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch
Star of the hit TV show Little House on the Prairie, author Alison Arngrim presents her comic memoir of growing up as one of television’s most memorable characters.
3 p.m., free
Borders
400 Post, SF
(415) 399-1633

Sunday, July 11

Last Dog on the Hill
At this benefit for Hopalong rescue, author Steve Duno presents his new book.
6 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

“Naked Girls Reading”
Get tips, advice and how-to’s from a naked girl at this latest installment of the “Naked Girls Reading” series featuring Carol Queen, Dottie Lux, Lady Monster, Isis Starr, Kimberlee Cline and Hollie Stevens providing their favorite words of advice.
7 p.m., $15-$20
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.nakedgirlsreading.net

Monday, July 12

Awaken Your Strongest Self
Author Neil Fiore talks about his four-step program for breaking self-destructive habits, increasing productivity, and performing at your best.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

“Monthly Rumpus”
Enjoy this reading with authors Justine Sharrock, Matt Stewart, Eli Horowitz, Mac Barnett, Lauren Wheeler, and Matthew L. Mosely featuring a performance by Richard Porter, music by Ember Shrag, and comedy by Janine Brito. There will also be food, raffles, and more.
7 p.m., $10
Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St., SF
www.therumpus.net

Presumed Dead
Crime reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and author Henry Lee discussed his new book titled, Presumed Dead: A True Life Murder Mystery.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688

Tuesday, July 13

An Intimate Ecology
Author Julia Whitty talks about her new book filled with gripping adventure, cutting-edge science, and an intimate understanding of our deep blue home.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

Golden Gate
Librarian, professor and author Kevin Starr discusses his new book titled, Golden Gate: The Life and Times of America’s Greatest Bridge.
7 p.m., free
BookShop West Portal
80 West Portal, SF
(415) 564-8080

REELing against the tide

John Elberling
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In a world of relative cinema-watching convenience, with Netflix and Blockbuster By Mail, the quirky neighborhood video rental store is going the way of the record store and the dodo. However, the East Bay still houses at least one fantastic holdout, REEL Video, located on Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. But perhaps not for long — despite REEL’s unique stock and organization, it is in fact owned by Hollywood Video, which recently filed for bankruptcy and announced the liquidation of all its stores. Over the past few weeks, REEL was suddenly plastered with fliers addressing frequently-asked questions about the store’s imminent closure, and calling for customer input on the store’s uncertain future.


Thanks to its impressive Netflix-besting selection (a VHS copy of 1965’s Chimes at Midnight!) and its invitingly idiosyncratic shelving categories (e.g. “Your Mom,”” “So Bad It’s Half Off,” “One Man Army,” “British Television,” “Werner Herzog,” “Bromance”), REEL is a staple of the Berkeley film-buff/geek/cultist community. With a section devoted specifically to the beloved Criterion Collection, and a broad array of international cinema, it’s a great resource for UC Berkeley students studying film or just looking for a crazy popcorn movie on a Friday night (Black Gestapo, anyone?).

The latest press release from REEL details a proposed future for the store, wherein it would become “ a community movie education and gathering place in addition to its on-going video rental business.” REEL’s employees and other champions are seeking “angel investors” to help purchase the video collection and lease the store grounds, in preparation for their newly conceived “potentially non-profit” status.

On or around Wednesday, June 23, REEL launched www.savereelvideo.com; they’ve also set up SaveReelVideo@gmail.com for interested customers to communicate with the store’s management.

Get on this, people! A genuine outpost of cultural weirdness and passion is about to be subsumed by the tide. It seems these are slowly dissipating, at least in the non-virtual world, so we have to save what we can.

SUV rampage victim speaks about the night he was hit

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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A line of television news cameras swiveled toward Rolando Casajeros, known to his friends and coworkers as “Allan,” and followed him as he moved gingerly into the conference room at a downtown San Francisco law office. The press conference was held on June 24 at the office of Choulos, Choulos & Wyle, the law firm tapped to represent him in a civil suit against the driver of the blue Nissan Rogue SUV that rammed into him June 2.

Casajeros was the first of four victims to be intentionally hit by the SUV driver on a rampage, only a few doors down from his home, near the intersection of 24th and Harrison streets in San Francisco’s Mission district. Since surviving the hit-and-run, his life has been turned upside down.

As he took a seat before three microphones, it became obvious that he had sustained very serious injuries. A scar zigzagged across the top of his shaved head, and a second scar crossed vertically down his forehead, marks from intensive surgery he’d endured to alleviate bleeding in his brain. His front teeth were missing and his lips were swollen. While his attorney, Claude Wyle, explained that he had sustained 12 facial fractures, jaw fractures that left him with a wired jaw, and mouth injuries in addition to the complications that necessitated brain surgery, Casajeros kept his eyes closed. “He’s very brave to come here today,” Wyle said gently.

When asked what he remembered from that night, Casajeros opened his eyes and looked up. Speaking in a low tone, he replied that he’d gone out to buy something from Safeway, and had a few grocery items with him as he biked home. The next thing he remembers is blacking out. “Bam, that’s it,” he said. “I just remember I flew in the air. That’s it.” Two nights later, he woke up in the hospital.

Casajeros underwent 19 hours of intensive surgery. He said he “almost fainted” when the doctor conveyed to him the extent of the damage. Since being released from the hospital last week, he’s been staying with the family of his best friend, Ronnie Guinto, who is a care provider by trade. Casajeros, who is originally from the Philippines, is the godfather of Guinto’s children.

The children’s mother, Kellie Arechiga, also spoke at the press conference, saying she wanted to get the word out about this weekend’s fundraiser at the Old Clam House to help cover expenses while he recovers from the traumatic experience. Casajeros has worked as a waiter at the Old Clam House for 12 years. He does not have health insurance, but there is a chance that the city’s Healthy San Francisco program will step in to assist with medical payments. State funds earmarked to aid victims of violent crime may also be available to him, according to his attorney.

Earlier on the day he was struck by the SUV, Casajeros and Guinto had gone out for a long recreational bike ride. “I love bikes,” Casajeros told the reporters. “I love to go biking. I go running. I’m an active person. But after this, I don’t know.” Casajeros cannot imagine why he was targeted, or why the man accused of going on the rampage, 39-year-old David Mark Clark of Albany, would have plowed into him and three others seemingly out of nowhere.

“To all the bike enthusiasts – be careful,” Casajeros said.

Wyle said it sometimes takes an outrageous event to highlight a broader trend of motorists behaving aggressively toward bicyclists in traffic. “There are many, many instances … where motorists are intentionally or recklessly endangering the lives of bicyclists,” said Wyle, who has taken many cases involving bike accidents.

Casajeros — who lives paycheck to paycheck working as a server in San Francisco — is not expected to be able to return to work for at least three months, according to the most optimistic estimate. In the meantime, he is in need of assistance to cover monthly expenses like rent, car payments, and transportation to and from his physical therapy appointments. Information on how to make a donation to a charitable trust fund set up by his attorney can be found here. Meanwhile, his friends and coworkers are still in need of items or services for a raffle at Sunday’s fundraiser at the Old Clam House.

The fundraiser will be held on Sunday, June 27, from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Old Clam House, 299 Bayshore Blvd, near Oakdale Avenue. $20 gets you a plate of food, one free drink, and two raffle tickets. There will also be live music and a DJ. Anyone wishing to make a donation for the raffle should e-mail Kelliearechiga2000@gmail.com.

Benefits: June 23-June 29

David Talbot
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Benefits: June 23-June 29

Ways to have fun while giving back this week


Wednesday, June 23

Water Bond Happy Hour
Join the Food and Water Watch team in helping to get people to vote NO on the California Water Bond, which will appear on the November ballot. Meet other people who care about the issues and discuss a sustainable water future for California and how water issues effect us all. Featuring stainless steel water bottle raffles to benefit Food and Water Watch, a local non-profit corporate accountability organization.
6 p.m., free
Elixer Bar
3200 16th St., SF
www.foodandwaterwatch.org

Thursday, June 24

Ecocity Builders Art Auction
Ecocity Builders is a non-profit dedicated to reshaping cities, towns, and villages for the long-term health of human and natural systems. Attend this slient art auction to help raise funds for Ecocity featuring hors d’oeuveres and an artist talk with Richard Register.
6 p.m.; $50 donation, fee goes towards bidding
SPUR Urban Center
654 Mission, SF
(510) 452-9522
www.ecocitybuilders.org

Saturday, June 26

Like Water for Chocolate
Inspired by chapter three of Laura Esquivel’s acclaimed novel, Like Water for Chocolate, this fundraiser will feature the spice of Mexico and the heat of love simmering in this fusion of food and performance. Proceeds to benefit Word for Word and Z Space. There is no parking at the performance site. Guests should park at the Mill Valley Middle School parking lot, where they will be shuttled to Hillside Gardens starting at 4:15 p.m. The event will be held outdoors, so dress warmly and comfortably.
5 p.m., $250
Hillside Gardens, Mill Valley
via Mill Valley Middle School
425 Sycamore, Mill Valley
(415) 626-0453

Walk in the Wild
Attend the Oakland Zoo’s annual fundraiser featuing vendors from over 90 restauants, caterers, bakeries, wineries, and breweries offering beverages and cuisine to be enjoyed while walking around the zoo and live music and dancing. Proceeds support the Oakland Zoo’s conservation, education, and animal enrichment programs. This event is 21 and over.
5 p.m., $150
Oakland Zoo
9777 Golf Links Road, Oakl.
www.oaklandzoo.org
(510) 632-9525

Sunday, June 27

Fundraiser for Alan
Alan, who has worked as a waiter at the historic Old Clamhouse in Bayview for 12 years, was one of the four cyclist who were purposely run down by a driver on June 2nd in the Mission and Potrero Hill neighborhoods. Alan has severe injuries to his head and face and has had to undergo 14 hours of surgery. Help raise money for his medical bills at this fundraiser where a door donation of $20 gets you a plate of food from the buffet, one free drink, and two raffle tickets. Featuring live music and a DJ.
3 p.m., $20 donation
The Old Clamhouse
299 Bayshore, SF
(415) 826-4880


Monday, June 28

Honduras Resiste
Watch three videos presented by the Bay Area Latin America Solidarity Coalition (BALASC) on the one year military coup that happened in Honduras in 2009,starting with The Coup and the Popular Resistance, followed by Exposing a Fraudulent Election, and ending with False Democracy in Honduras, and the U.S. Complicity.  Proceeds to benefit the Popular Resistance in Honduras.
8 p.m., $6
Artists’ Television Access
992 Valencia, SF
http://balasc.org

Music listings

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

WEDNESDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

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

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

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

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

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

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

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THURSDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

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

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

Tipsy House Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FRIDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

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

Marina LaValle Coda. 10pm, $10.

Wrenboys Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SATURDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

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

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

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

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

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

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

MC Trachiotomy Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, free.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

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

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

Rattle Cans Plough and Stars. 9pm.

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

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SUNDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Completely Unmarketable Amnesia. 7pm, free.

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

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

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

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

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MONDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TUESDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

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

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

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

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

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

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

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Schedules are for Wed/23–Tues/29 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 350 Sansome, SF; www.theresponsemovie.com. Free. The Response (2009) Wed, 6.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. The Female Face of AIDS: Crisis in Malawi (Boyce and Karr, 2008), Sun, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8-13. San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, through Sun/27. See film listings. The Castro (1997) Tues, 6:30. Free screening presented by KQED in honor of Pride.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. Babies (Balmès, 2010), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. Micmacs (Jeunet, 2010), call for dates and times. Touching Home (Miller and Miller, 2009), call for dates and times. Have You Heard from Johannesburg? (Field, 2006), June 25-July 1, call for times. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (Stern and Sundberg, 2010), June 25-July 1, call for times.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Food, Inc. (Kenner, 2008), Wed, 7:30.

OPERA PLAZA 601 Van Ness, SF; (415) 267-4893, www.anightmaretoremember.com. $8-10. “A Nightmare to Remember International Film Festival,” short horror films, Sat, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Brought to Light: Recent Acquisitions to the PFA Collection:” Forest of Bliss (Gardner, 1985), Wed, 7. “El Futuro Está Aqui: Sci-Fi Classics from Mexico:” The Ship of Monsters (González, 1959), Thurs, 7:30; The Stronger Sex (Muriel, 1945), Fri, 7:30; The Aztec Mummy vs. The Human Robot (Portillo, 1957), Sat, 7; Santo vs. the Martian Invasion (Crevenna, 1966), Sat, 8:35; Planet of the Female Invaders (Crevenna, 1965), Sun, 7:10. “Tales from the Golden Age: Recent Romanian Cinema:” The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Puiu, 2005), Fri, 7:30; Videograms of a Revolution (Farocki and Ujica, 1992), Sun, 5.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. No One Knows About Persian Cats (Ghobadi, 2009), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:25. La Mission (Bratt, 2010), Thurs-Fri, 7, 9:25. “Fundraiser for Bay Area Young Positives,” Sat, 2-4. For more info, visit www.baypositives.org. The Bigtop (Reed, 2010), Sat, 7, 9:15. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), Sun, 2, 5:15, 8:30; Mon, 7:30. Casino Jack and the United States of Money (Gibney, 2010), June 29-July 1, 7, 9:30 (also June 30, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. Free-$10.75. Lovers of Hate (Poyser, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7:15, 9:15. San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, Wed-Sun. See film listings. Have You Heard from Johannesburg? (Field, 2006), June 27-July 1, call for times.

“TEMESCAL STREET CINEMA” 49th St at Telegraph, Oakl; www.temescalstreetcinema.com. Free. Etienne! (Mizushima), Thurs, 8. With free popcorn and live music.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.thirdi.org. $10-16. “Mizoguchi on Desperate Women:” Street of Shame (1965), Wed, 5; Utamaro and His Five Women (1946), Wed-Thurs, 7; Sisters of the Gion (1936), Thurs, 5.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Eccentricites of a Blond Hair Girl (de Oliveira, 2009), Thurs and Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2.<\!s>

Go … Germany?

David Talbot
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0
Go … Germany?

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Everyone assumes that because I love to play soccer, I’m interested in the World Cup. Rather than contradict them, I have become interested in the World Cup. How is that for flexing one’s codependency?

At first I merely feigned interest, but then the feigning turned into affectation, then adoption, and now I find myself legitimately, actually, gut-wrenchingly interested — albeit by accident.

Unlike a lot of people, I don’t care who the hell wins. I could probably root for Brazil, since that’s who most of my soccer buds back (I play on a team of Brazilians). I could get away with rooting for Italy, the defending World Cup champions, because that’s the flavor of the blood that I have, and, on the third hand, never in my life have I felt more patriotically-inclined, God bless America, given my recent failed attempt at expatriation. Plus I love an underdog.

But my capacity for love is temporarily out of service, thanks to a certain German person who absolutely, positively, and very very stroppishly hates soccer — not the sport so much as the hoopla. Or, in other words, go Germany!!!

May the streets of that fine, fucked country be filled with whooping fans, national songs, shouts, bells, whistles, shenaniganism, hooliganism, and general mayhem. May the peace be disturbed! May it be impossible for writers to write there, and for lovers to love, and may the spirit of lowbrow, sports-related celebration annoy the living crap out of every stodgy old lady and artsy fartsy middle-aged loser couple in all of Bavaria, in particular, the old-town district of Regensburg. Mwa-ha-ha-ha.

You thought I was going to go against the Germans, didn’t you? I thought I was too. I still do feel, or at least hope, that passion will win out over discipline on at least some playing fields, such as soccer ones. That’s why, while German national teams tend to do well, Brazil and Italy win more World Cups.

Nevertheless: Go Germany!

I tried to watch their first game at the closest Irish pub to my house, the Phoenix, but it was way too crowded so I walked to Mission Street. All my many friends who had asked me about my interest in the World Cup, inciting my interest … I called all of them but nobody could join me, and this was on a weekend.

So my only friend was my appetite.

Perfect! I wound up at La Oaxaqueña, the little corner hole-in-the-wall at Mission and Clarion, near 17th Street. I’d eaten there once before. It’s good. But more to the point, they had a fuzzy little TV going up in the corner, and in sharp contrast to the Phoenix, there was nobody in the place.

Nobody at all, eating.

So I stayed and ate and tried to put up with the TV. The picture kept locking up and making temporarily cubist photography out of live sports, and the audio sounded like bees. I have since come to realize that all World Cup soccer matches sound like bees, but at the time I didn’t know this.

Anyway, I didn’t let it ruin my meal, which was fish cooked in coconut milk with ginger. Points for them for taking forever to cook it, even though I was, as I said, the only one there. They must have sensed I was in it for the television, and kindly made it easy for me to nurse my way through as much of the second half as it was possible to watch.

The fish was great, the rice and the beans were fine, and the Australians played like chickens with their heads cut off. It started to look like Germany had one extra player out there. Which they did, one of the headless chickens having gone and gotten hisself red-carded.

Come to think of it, I don’t remember Germany ever even committing a foul, which reminds me of how nobody ever even jaywalks there. Not even in the middle of the night.

Christ, it’s going to be hard to root for a team like that.

LA OAXAQUEÑA BAKERY AND RESTAURANT

Daily: 6 a.m.–2 a.m.

2128 Mission, SF

(415) 621-5446

D/MC/V

Beer and wine

 

Alerts

David Talbot
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0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23

Remembering torture victims


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

6 p.m., free

Amnesty International SF Office, Suite 210

350 Sansome, SF

(415) 546-2080

Water bond happy hour


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

6 p.m., free

Elixir Bar

3200 16th St., SF

www.foodandwaterwatch.org

THURSDAY, JUNE 24

Radically queer


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

7 p.m., free

New Valencia Hall

Suite 202

625 Larkin, SF

(415) 864-1278

SATURDAY, JUNE 26

Protest Big Oil


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

10 a.m.; free, donations accepted

Ocean Beach

1000 Great Highway, SF

www.slashoil.blogspot.com

www.handsacrossthesand.org

SUNDAY, JUNE 27

Have a good cry


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

2 p.m., free

San Francisco LGBT Center

1800 Market, SF

www.gayshamesf.org

MONDAY, JUNE 28

Honduras resistance


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

8 p.m., $6

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

www.balasc.org

A tale of animal liberation


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

7 p.m., free

Station 40

3030B 16th St., SF

www.sparrowmedia.net

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

Dear John

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Dear John

arts@sfbg.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

TRASH HUMPING

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

RUSH

Through July 10, free

Rena Bransten

77 Geary, SF

(415) 982-3292

www.renabranstengallery.com

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

Through July 17, free

Marx & Zavattero

77 Geary, SF

(415) 627-9111

www.marxzav.com

Our Weekly Picks: June 16-22, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

WEDNESDAY 16

THEATER/DANCE

The Tosca Project

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

Through June 27

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

American Conservatory Theater

415 Geary, SF

(415) 749-2228

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

THURSDAY 17

PERFORMANCE

Fresh Meat Festival

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

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

Z Space @ Theater Artaud

450 Florida, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

MUSIC

U.S. Bombs

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

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

8 p.m., $14

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

EVENT

Decomposition reading

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

7–9 p.m., free

Ecology Center Store

2530 San Pablo, Berk.

(510) 548-3402

www.ecologycenter.org

FRIDAY 18

DANCE

Great Integration: A Chamber Hip-Hop Opera

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

Fri/18–Sat/19, 8 p.m., $15–$25

ODC Commons

351 Shotwell, SF

(415) 863-9834

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/104653

MUSIC

QM

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

With Rec-League, Adverse, and Parable Paul

9 p.m., $10

Hotel Utah

500 Fourth St., SF

(415) 546-6300

www.routinefly.com

EVENT

“Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young”

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

5–8:45 p.m., free

de Young Museum

50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, SF

(415) 750-3600

www.deyoung.famsf.org

FILM

Top of the Food Chain

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

8 p.m., $6

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890

www.atasite.org

PERFORMANCE

Miriam’s Well

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

8 p.m., $20

Grace Cathedral

1100 California, SF

(415) 749-6355

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/97354

SATURDAY 19

EVENT/PERFORMANCE

Birthfest and The Dynamite Show

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

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

Brava Theater

2781 24th St., SF

www.foufouha.com

www.birthfest.com

EVENT

StreetSmARTS Community Extravaganza

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

Sat/19, 6 p.m., free

African American Art and Culture Complex

762 Fulton, SF

(415) 252-2598

www.sfartscommission.org

MONDAY 21

MUSIC

Brian Jonestown Massacre

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

9 p.m., $22.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

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

Reel groundbreaking

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Reel groundbreaking

FRAMELINE Appropriately enough, Kathy Wolfe — founder and CEO of this year’s Frameline Award winner, Wolfe Video — realized her calling while attending a Frameline screening.

“Somewhere around 1979, I went to a Frameline screening of [pioneering 1977 doc] Word is Out. Within the body of that film, there’s a challenge to make a difference,” she remembers, speaking from her San Jose office. “I started working in my local public access television station, and for four years I studied and worked in every aspect of video production. At the end of that, I actually had a few documentary-style pieces and some women’s music videos I wanted to sell. In order to get more serious, I took out a business license, and that was in 1985. But I very much was inspired by the challenge in the movie. Our mission today is very similar to the mission we had at that time: to make these images more available to the world at large so that people would feel empowered to come out.”

Today, Wolfe Video is the leading exclusive distributor of LGBT films, which they do via film festivals, video stores, video on demand, and the Internet, including their website, Wolfevideo.com. Their catalog includes hits like Big Eden (2000) and Claire of the Moon (1992), as well as the entire performance catalog of Lily Tomlin — whose early support helped the company make key contacts with distribution networks and retail outlets. According to president Maria Lynn, who joined in 1993, the fact that Wolfe Video is celebrating its 25th anniversary is a testament to the increasing popularity of LGBT films.

“[In 1985] the gay genre, as it were, was considered small and unknown. Now it’s a very significant genre in independent film. Between Wolfe distributing them, and filmmakers making them, and festivals like Frameline screening them, it has created its own category within independent film,” she says. “We have a lot of movies now that have a more mainstream appeal, for example Undertow, which is going to be a centerpiece at Frameline, is a beautiful film from Peru. And the way people talked about Brokeback Mountain as being about love — people will talk about this one similarly. It touches people very deeply and it is not limited to a gay and lesbian audience as well. That’s one of the biggest things that’s changed: the filmmakers have really been able to branch out, whether it’s with casting, or better stories, or bigger budgets.” 

FRAMELINE AWARD: WOLFE VIDEO

With Undertow Tues/22, 7 p.m., Castro

Rubicon taps into the conspiracy TV treasure trove

John Elberling
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Rubicon taps into the conspiracy TV treasure trove

By Ryan Lattanzio

“Story Matters Here.” AMC’s tagline should tell you something about their primetime gestalt. With two of television’s most acclaimed dramas in its lineup — Mad Men, a show I admire but can’t love, and Breaking Bad, hands down the best show on TV — AMC seems destined to be heir apparent to HBO’s kingdom of smartly written dramadies and tragicomedies (Treme, True Blood, and this fall’s Boardwalk Empire, to name a few).

Much to my chagrin, Breaking Bad just ended its third season and Mad Men isn’t returning for its fourth until August 1st. To triangulate its penchant for anti-heroes (Don Draper, Walter White) and dimly lit subterfuge, AMC has added another series, Rubicon, with a pilot slated for August 1st as well. So far, the puzzle-like plot remains veiled in mystery, but the cast is stellar: James Badge Dale (fresh out of HBO’s The Pacific), Miranda Richardson, and Dallas Roberts, among others.

After the season finale of Bad, AMC previewed the first episode of Rubicon, and it’s now available to stream online. Produced and directed by Allen Coulter, one of HBO’s brilliant episodic directors, the pilot is more enervating than enlightening in its piecemeal delivery of plot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYZXdyJVwU8&feature=related

The pilot opens with a quote from Woodrow Wilson that sets the surreptitious stage: “Some of the biggest men in the United States…know that there is a power somewhere so organized…so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” The next scene is pure bravado: the score swells and segues into a blank, white screen that soon reveals itself as an aerial shot of snow-laden ground. We then hear shots fire, and we know it has something to do with a four-leaf clover on the victim’s desk. It seems the clover is no longer the paradigm of good luck—one of the show’s many subversive elements.

“Not every conspiracy is a theory,” the show’s snarky tagline tells us—and that’s probably true considering how totally insane the protagonist often sounds to his colleagues. We soon meet Will Travers (Dale), a professional code-cracker who looks like a conspiracy theorist: disheveled hair, Oxford shirt, and the stoic gaze of a man who knows too much about something. (“He’s not mopey, he’s just introspective!,” one of Will’s coworkers says.)

In a montage of page-turning and shot-dissolving, Will spots a slippery pattern in an otherwise normal, everyday American pastime: his crossword puzzle. He brings it to his supervisor, who says, “It’s probably an inside joke.” But in a very X-Files-y way—and Will is almost like a dapper version of one of the Lone Gunmen—the boss brings the crossword to another unidentified man-in-a-suit. Something bad is going down. “What’s the big picture here?” Will asks. “You’ll know soon enough,” his associate tells him.

Series creator and writer Jason Horwitch makes Rubicon feel strangely familiar and entirely American in linking Will to September 11. The hysteria—and paranoia—of post-9/11 America is deftly portrayed in the passing of suspicious notes, mysterious phone calls, and train crashes. These tropes might feel tired elsewhere, but here they are fresh and rather chilling. Quickly we realize Will would probably dig something like that YouTube viral documentary sensation Zeitgeist.

Rubicon is a thriller steeped in a paranoid urban milieu — the city is the devil’s playground and it’s best to keep your head in the sand. Yet Will Travers, the kind of guy who shares tea and secrets with strangers after dark, is obsessed by the unexplained deaths of his code-cracking cohorts and isn’t willing to stay shut up about it.

Despite subtle, tightly-wound character development, Rubicon‘s pilot feels like watching a show for the first time in the middle of its season. There’s little to learn from the pilot, but its ambiguity is in the sly interest of bating the audience to come back. What you can see is promising, yet what exactly the series is about remains unclear. So far, it seems to focus on over-educated, conspiracy-crazed geeks who love intrigue and find espionage in the same way you might find shapes in the clouds: they’re there if you’re looking for them.

Regardless of its opacity (and that’s always a good thing in the end, right Lost fans?), Rubicon is poised to be another sparkling gem in the dark trove of AMC treasures that have made recent cable so fascinating and so…adult.

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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Schedules are for Wed/16–Tues/22 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $5-6. “OpenScreening,” Thurs, 8. For participation information, email ataopenscreening@atasite.org. Top of the Food Chain (Paisz), Fri, 8.

CAFÉ OF THE DEAD 3208 Grand, Oakl; (510) 931-7945. Free. “Independent Filmmakers Screening Nite,” Wed, 6:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8-13. Sex and the City 2 (King, 2010), Wed, call for times. San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, June 17-27. See film listings.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. Babies (Balmès, 2010), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. Looking for Eric (Loach, 2010), call for dates and times. Micmacs (Jeunet, 2010), call for dates and times. Touching Home (Miller and Miller, 2009), call for dates and times.

CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM 736 Mission, SF; (415) 655-7800, info@thecjm.org. Free with museum admission ($8-10). Sixty Six (Weiland, 2006), Sun, 2.

DE YOUNG MUSEUM Piazzoni Mural Room, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, Golden Gate Park, SF; (415) 488-1211, www.marinmindscapes.com. Free. Marin Mind/Scapes (2010), Sat, 2.

DECO LOUNGE 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025, www.decosf.com. Free. “Queer Cinema 101,” Mon, 10. Holly DeVille hosts this weekly show highlighting films that have had an impact on queer culture.

EXPLORATORIUM McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon, SF; http://asifa.net. Free. “A Tribute to the International Festival of Animation and to Prescott Wright: The Early Years,” Fri, 7:30.

FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK This week: Old Mill Park, 300 block of Throckmorton, Mill Valley; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Star Trek (Abrams, 2009), Fri, 8. Dolores Park, Dolores and 19th St, SF; same contact info and price. Grease (Kleiser, 1978), Sat, 8.

FORBIDDEN ISLAND TIKI LOUNGE 1304 Lincoln, Alameda; www.forbiddenislandalameda.com. Free. “Forbidden Thrills: Freaky Filipino Flix!”: •Mad Doctor of Blood Island (de Leon and Romero, 1968), Mon, 7:30, and For Your Height Only (Nicart, 1981), Mon, 9:15.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Processed People (Nelson and Nelson), Wed, 7:30.

JACK LONDON SQUARE PAVILION THEATER 98 Broadway, Oakl; www.oakuff.org. Free. “Oakland Underground Film Festival: Leading Local Talent Local Shorts Showcase,” Fri, 7:30.

ODDBALL FILMS 275 Capp, SF; (415) 558-8117, info@oddballfilms.com (RSVP required as space is limited). $5-10. “Oddball Wants Children: A Matinee of Accidental Edutainment for Kids and their Adults,” Sat, 3 (kid-friendly matinee), 8.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then (Green, 2010), Wed, 7:30. “Akira Kurosawa Centennial:” The Lower Depths (1957), Thurs, 7; The Bad Sleep Well (1960), Sat, 6:30; Ikiru (1952), Sun, 7:15. “Tales from the Golden Age: Recent Romanian Cinema:” Police, Adjective (Porumboiu, 2009), Fri, 7 and Sun, 5. “Brought to Light: Recent Acquisitions to the PFA Collection:” The Host (Bong, 2006), Fri, 9:15; Payday (Duke, 1972), Sat, 9:15.

RED POPPY ART HOUSE 2698 Folsom, SF; www.redpoppyarthouse.org. $10-15. “Mission Ear and Eye,” live film music by Lisa Mezzacappa and Nightshade, plus music by Katy Stephan, Adam Shulman, and the Holly Martins, and live film projection by Alfonso Alvarez, Fri, 9.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Mother (Bong, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9:35 (also Wed, 2). The Runaways (Sigismondi, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:30 (also Sat, 2). Smoked (The Movie), Sat, 4:20. Oceans (Perrin and Cluzand, 2010), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:25 (also Sun, 2). No One Knows About Persian Cats (Ghobadi, 2009), June 22-23, 7:15, 9:25 (also June 23, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. Free-$10.75. The Full Picture (Bowden, 2008), Wed-Thurs, 7, 8:45. “San Francisco United Film Festival,” narrative and documentary films, Wed-Thurs.

“TEMESCAL STREET CINEMA” 49th St at Telegraph, Oakl; www.temescalstreetcinema.com. Free. Pelada (Fergusson, Boughen, Oxenham, and White, 2010), Thurs, 8. With free popcorn and live music.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Bluebeard (Breillat, 2009), Thurs-Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2.

Bread and Circuses: Mexico and the World Cup

Zelda Bronstein
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Bread and Circuses: Mexico and the World Cup

MEXICO CITY (June 11th) — The Caliente Sports Book down the street is buzzing with betters studying dog and horse races, Major League Baseball, even golf, on the multiple screens. Of particular interest are those channels running wrap-ups of the afternoon match between Mexico and 2006 World Cup champion Italy, from which the national team emerged victorious in a final prelim before this year’s edition of the Copa del Mundo gets underway later this week.


Italy, it may be remembered, won the much-coveted cup four years ago on penalty kicks after France was reduced to playing with ten men on the field when super-star Zenedine Zidane was disqualified for ferociously head-butting a rival who purportedly called his mother and sister “whores.” Beating Italy was a decided plus for Mexico’s downtrodden spirits as the Mundiales approach.


One group of aficionados was not much interested in Mexico’s fortunes in the upcoming fandango in South Africa. Instead, they gathered around a big screen in one corner of the betting parlor cheering on the Los Angeles Lakers in a National Basketball Association Finals match-up with the Boston Celtics. “Forget about football,” sneered “El Guerro” Gonzalez, a regular, “this is where the real money gets made.” Because pro basketball games routinely rack up hundred-point scores, betters have multiple opportunities to wager on winners and losers, over and under point spreads, total points in a quarter, and whether Kobe Bryant will hit the next three-pointer.


But the basketball euphoria will dissipate post haste as the World Cup takes center stage. Although the NBA’s despotic commissioner David Stern promotes his product as the world game, basketball hardly holds a candle to what the U.S. provincially terms “soccer” and the rest of the Planet Earth calls football.


Indeed, the “Copa del Mundo” (“Cup of the World”) will soon sweep every other sporting event from the screens — let alone political scandal, of which there is plenty in this distant neighbor nation, including the upcoming Super Sunday gubernatorial elections July 4th, and even droughts, floods, and other natural disasters. The interminable drug war that has taken 23,000 lives in the past three years will move to the backburner. Ditto an economy that is tailspinning out of control — a million workers lost their jobs in the first three months of this year alone despite President Felipe Calderon’s rosy claims of “recovery.”


Speculation about the disappearance of one of the nation’s most powerful politicians will fade from the primetime news, and the first year anniversary of the incineration of 49 babies in a government-run day care center owned in part by the first lady’s cousin will not even be noticed. The military takeover of the great Cananea copper mine and the dissolution of the miners union, is not news. New revolutions — this is, after all, the hundredth year anniversary of our landmark revolution — could rock the land, but for the next month, Mexico will live and die on what happens to the national team in South Africa.
“In football, we find our revenge against the adversaries of our lives,” philosophizes sociologist Jose Maria Candia in a recent Contralinea magazine interview, “if it goes badly at work, in the economy, politics, the project of the nation, when 11 boys put on the green jersey and do well in an international tournament, we feel vindicated by life.”
With 32 national teams from all five continents in the competition for the World Cup, the fate of the “seleccion” will have palpable impact on domestic tranquility. The political outfall of the Mundiales is unpredictable. Pumped up on toxic nationalism and xenophobia, football is a blood sport in southern climes. Honduras and El Salvador once fought a full-fledged war over soccer.


If the national team wins or acquits itself well, success will strengthen the government in charge no matter how poorly it has served the country. Likewise, a shoddy performance can topple rulers. In Mexico, increasingly unpopular president Felipe Calderon, who won high office in fraud-marred elections three years ago, is banking on the national selection’s triumphs in the opening round to invigorate his deteriorating image. Calderon’s bet is hardly a sure thing.


Mexico, Number 17 on the Federation of World Football Federation’s rankings (now the Coca Cola FIFA rankings), plays host South Africa in the inaugural match of the tournament, and “His Excellency” Felipe Calderon (dixit South African president Jacob Zuma) will be a guest of honor. The “Bafana Bafana” (“Boys Boys”) as the locals are worshipped, have won their last four prelim matches and in the 2009 Confederation Cup took Spain, which some football gurus fix as the best team in the world, into overtime. Their fanatics’ incessantly droning “vuvazelas” or plastic trumpets are said to drive opponents mad.


On the other hand, should Mexico beat sentimental favorite South Africa, it will make Calderon few friends on the African continent — five other African teams are in the draw, with war-torn Cote d’Ivoire the cream of the crop.


Aside from the Bafana Bafana, France and Uruguay are the real class of Mexico’s four-team group — while the French have appeared lackadaisical of late, whipping the South Americans is improbable. Anything less than reaching the quarterfinals will not rehabilitate Calderon’s popularity.


Mexico has a young team that fluctuates between indifference and playing out of control. It is anchored by seven Mexican players from the European and Turkish leagues, and the wily but slow-footed veteran Cuauhtemoc Blanco. Burned repeatedly by the national team’s poor performances in the Mundiales, many fans such as Manuel Garcia, a waiter at the old quarter Mexico City eatery Café La Blanca, consider that only divine intervention can save Mexico — and Calderon — from ignominious elimination.


When and if Mexico wins its matches though, wild celebrations are guaranteed to erupt around the gilded Angel of Independence on the bustling Paseo de Reforma — drunkenness, fisticuffs, and hooliganism are de rigor. Flag-draped caravans of honking cars will jam the boulevards of this conflictive megalopolis. On game days, half the population of Mexico, led by its president, will don green jerseys and play hooky from work and school. Saloons will fill to the brim with fans spilling out into the streets, jostling for a peek at the plasma screens. Masses to insure that God is on Mexico’s side will be pronounced from the altars and saints dressed up in the national colors.


Although football is tantamount to religion in this country where 70% of the population lives in and around the poverty line, only the super rich will have the wherewithal to jet off to Africa. Instead, the underclass will monitor the Mundiales at the “FIFA Fan Fest” on giant screens erected in the great Zocalo plaza from which nearly a hundred hunger-striking members of the Mexican Electricity Workers Union (SME), near death after a month of voluntary starvation, will no doubt be evicted so as not to dampen the fiesta.


Televisa and TV Azteca, Mexico’s two-headed television monopoly, which will transmit the games (the premium package includes 3-D) will have the nation eating out of its hands (and guzzling Corona beer.)  The TV monoliths have leased rights to broadcast the Mundiales from the Swiss-based FIFA, the absolute dictator of the sport for the past 106 years that counts 204 out of 208 football federations worldwide on its roster. FIFA TV revenues are expected to top $167,000,000 for the 2010 World Cup.


This year’s Copa del Mundo is awash with drama. Will the Argentine selection, a perennial favorite, graced by the world’s best player, Leonel “the Flea” Messi, blow up under their sometimes psychotic coach Diego Maradona, himself a Mundiales’ immortal? Will the first round match between England and the U.S. (14th on the FIFA listings with a world-class star, Landon Donovan, to prove it) invoke the star-crossed Yanqui upset of the Brits 60 years ago in 1950 in Brazil, the only time these two teams have ever met in the World Cup?


If the U.S. gets by England, a match between Mexico and its hated gringo rival would up the drama quotient here considerably. A face-off between South Korea and North Korea, both of which are in the draw albeit in separate groups, could lead to nuclear confrontation.


How will tiny, bruised Honduras, which played through a coup d’etat to qualify, fare against the big guns? What kind of karmic reward is in store for France, which slimed its way into the World Cup with mega-star Thierry Henry’s illegal hand-slap goal against the Irish? Will Germany be dispirited by the suicide of its troubled veteran goalie (is this a Wim Wenders’ film)? Will five-time champ Brazil, which is hosting both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, be so overloaded with hubris that the selection will forget to play football?


But unquestionably the drama of dramas is focused on host South Africa, the land of blood and gold, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Joe Slovo, and the last great struggle for liberation from colonialism.


South Africa, an unlikely site for the World Cup, was promised the games by Swiss football impresario Joseph Batter during his 1998 campaign to become the czar of the FIFA. Blatter, who was said to have been backed by Middle East oil money, needed African votes to put him over the top. Although Nigeria and Morocco were also proposed to host the 2010 Cup, South Africa, the continent’s fastest-growing economy, was chosen both as a tribute to African football and to Nelson Mandela. Blatter even flew the frail, aging apostle of African liberation, to London to ballyhoo the designation.
Whether the beloved Mandiba will be well enough to attend the inauguration is the drama within the drama.


In his youth, Nelson Mandela was a keen amateur boxer and enthusiasm for sports has colored his life. Football is indeed the national sport of black South Africans, 75% of the population. During Mandela’s 28 years of imprisonment on Robbin Island for the crime of defying apartheid, his fellow prisoners and comrades in the African National Congress (ANC), played football incessantly, taping up rags into balls, and booting them up and down the narrow prison corridors. But Madiba was held in isolation and could never participate.


Nelson Mandela’s vision for the new South Africa encompassed sports as a path to racial reconciliation. If football was a black sport in South Africa, rugby is an Afrikaner obsession — the Springboks were the maximum icon of the apartheid regime. As president, Mandela brought the 1995 World Rugby Cup to Johannesburg, a story fictionalized in the film “Invictus,” and won the hearts and minds of his former persecutors. Now the World Cup 2010 is slated to project South Africa before the world as a dynamic, multi-racial powerhouse.


The truth is always more diffuse. Jacob Zuma, the country’s very corruptible third president, and his predecessors have sunk between $3.7 and $6 billion USD in infrastructure to burnish their images in a nation where 43% of South Africa’s 45.000.000 peoples live on $2 or less a day. The gleaming $300,000,000 Soccer City Stadium where the July 11th finals will be staged, abuts Soweto, the festering high-crime enclave of 3,000,000 mostly threadbare citizens, 30% of whom suffer from AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. Gangs of orphaned children rule the street.


Similarly, the stadium at Port Elizabeth on Nelson Mandela Bay, which came in at $287,000,000, was built over a slum from which hundreds were evicted. A school complex was demolished to make way for the Neusprot venue (only $140,000,000) — 13 such stadiums have risen from the dust amidst a storm of charges of kickbacks, bribery, and favoritism.
If recent history is any hint, the new stadiums will quickly become certifiable white elephants. Even Beijing’s much-praised “Birds’ Nest” coliseum designed for the 2008 Olympics is reportedly tenantless, and the Greek economy just collapsed in part thanks to  the burden of debt incurred for infrastructure for its Olympic Games. 


With a population scuffling just to feed itself, filling all this dazzling stadia with paying customers is problematic. Even the $18 cheap seats — a week’s wages in the cities and a month’s income in some rural areas — are mostly out of reach in a country where 50% of the work force is out of work. To deflect a grave social crisis in the making, the FIFA is offering 120,000 free admissions, about 2,200 seats for each of the World Cup’s 62 contests. Riots have already occurred at “friendly” preliminary games.


Ever since the bad old days of ancient Rome, bread and circuses have been a powerful formula for social control. In South Africa, as in Mexico, the World Cup is designed to make the discontented forget their discontent. For the next month, the violence, corruption, and class and race hatreds that dominate daily life in Mexico, South Africa, and the rest of what used to be called the third world will disappear beneath the social surface.


Although conflict is my bread and butter, I’m not going to miss the 2010 Mundiales for the world. 


John Ross is at home in the maw of the Monstruo watching the World Cup. You can complain to him at johnross@igc.org


–

Holy surf party, Batman!

John Elberling
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Holy surf party, Batman!

By Sam Stander

Alameda’s Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge is hosting a variety of events this summer that incorporate film screenings, live music, and alcohol. Curated by Will “The Thrill” Viharo</a>, these are mostly part of a series called ”Forbidden Thrills,” which features themed double features of only the campiest camp, and runs monthly through December.

This Thursday, however, is billed as “Comic Book Superhero Nite,” complete with costume contests, music from the Deadlies, and a screening of the day-glo 1966 film version of Batman, “batapulted” (and I quote!) from the Adam West-Burt Ward television series that my parents always called “Silly Batman” when I was little. And boy, does it deserve that epithet.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGWmJPToolM
 
Seriously, though, it’s not often you come across a movie that features both an “exploding man-eating shark” and horrendous dialogue. Seize this opportunity while you can.

COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO NITE
Thurs/10, 8 p.m., no cover
Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge
1304 Lincoln, Alameda
(510) 749-0332
www.forbiddenislandalameda.com

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Schedules are for Wed/9–Tues/15 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTS AND CULTURE COMPLEX 762 Fulton, SF; (415) 762-2071. $12-20. Submerged Queer Spaces: Music and Architectural Remains (Dubrowsky), with live music by the Jack Curtis Dubrowsky Ensemble, Fri, 7:30.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. “ANSWER Coalition Film Series:” The Inner Tour (2000), Thurs, 7:30. “Experimental Films and Sounds from the Bay Area,” works by Wiggwaum, Chen Santa Maria, and Jay Korber, Sat, 8.

BRAVA THEATRE 2789 24th St, SF; http://qwocmap.org. Free. “Sixth Annual Queer Women of Color Film Festival,” Fri, 7:30; Sat, 4; Sun, 2.

CAFÉ OF THE DEAD 3208 Grand, Oakl; (510) 931-7945. Free. “Independent Filmmakers Screening Nite,” Wed, 6:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8-13. Sex and the City 2 (King, 2010), call for times, through June 16. “Midnites for Maniacs: She-Roes:” •A League of Their Own (Marshall, 1992), Fri, 6:30; Jennifer’s Body (Kusama, 2009), Fri, 9:30, with screenwriter Diablo Cody in person; The Legend of Billie Jean (Robbins, 1985), Fri, 11:59.

CERRITO 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito; www.rialtocinemas.com. $7. “Cerrito Classics:” Born Yesterday (Cukor, 1950), Thurs, 7:15.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. Babies (Balmès, 2010), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. Looking for Eric (Loach, 2010), call for dates and times. Micmacs (Jeunet, 2010), call for dates and times. Touching Home (Miller and Miller, 2009), call for dates and times. The Prisoner of Zenda (Cromwell, 1937), Sun, 7. With Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Craig Barron and Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt in person to discuss the film’s groundbreaking special effects.

CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM 736 Mission, SF; www.thecjm.org. $10. Holy Rollers (Asch, 2010), Wed, 7. With director Kevin Asch and screenwriter Antonio Macia in person.

DECO LOUNGE 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025, www.decosf.com. Free. “Queer Cinema 101,” Mon, 10. Holly DeVille hosts this weekly show highlighting films that have had an impact on queer culture.

MEZZANINE 444 Jessie, SF; www.sffs.org. $8. “SFFS Film Arts Forum: Far-Flung Films,” Mon, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Icky Flix: Videos by the Residents,” Wed, 7:30. “Brought to Light: Recent Acquisitions to the PFA Collection:” Le bonheur (Varda, 1965), Thurs, 7; The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (Irving, 2005), Sat, 5. “Tales from the Golden Age: Recent Romanian Cinema:” Tales from the Golden Age (various directors, 2009), Fri, 6:30 and Sun, 5; 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Mungiu, 2007), Fri, 9:05. “Akira Kurosawa Centennial:” Red Beard (1965), Sat, 7:15; I Live in Fear (1955), Sun, 7:35.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. When You’re Strange (DiCillo, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7:15, 9:15 (also Wed, 2). Ride the Divide (Dion and Weeks, 2010), Fri, 7, 9. This show, $10-15. “Burning Man Film Festival,” Sat-Sun, 2. It Came From Kuchar (Kroot, 2009), Mon-Tues, 7:15, 9:15.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. Free-$10.75. “San Francisco United Film Festival,” narrative and documentary films, June 11-17.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Hardcore Manila:” Kinatay (Mendoza, 2009), Sat, 7:30; Sun, 4:30. Pearls on the Ocean Floor (Adanto), Sun, 2. Presented in conjunction with the exhibit “Taravat Talepasand: Drawings.”

In Mexico, turtles and oil privatization

Zelda Bronstein
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0
In Mexico, turtles and oil privatization

MEXICO CITY (June 3rd) — The turtles of Caribbean Mexico are an ancient race. Their ancestors paddled with dinosaurs and prehistoric fish. Kemp’s Ridley turtles were burying their eggs in Gulf Coast sanctuaries countless millennia before the Olmecs, Mexico’s matrix civilization, installed their mysterious giant heads on the Veracruz plain. The presence of turtles in indigenous iconography is evidenced by artifacts displayed in anthropological museums in Mexico City and Jalapa Veracruz. The 20th Century naturalists recorded “arribos” (“arrivals”) of tens of thousands of Kemp’s Ridley females at Rancho Nuevo beach Tamaulipas; with few exceptions, Kemp’s Ridleys (named for an amateur turtle-ologist and the smallest and rarest of all sea turtles) nest only at Rancho Nuevo and Padre Island, Texas.


But for Gulf waters, turtles are like canaries in the coalmines. The 1979 blowout of Ixtoc 1, a Mexican National Petroleum Company (PEMEX) platform off the southern state of Tabasco, gushed uncontrollably for nine months. Some 3,000,000 barrels spewed into the Gulf of Mexico, fouling beaches and nesting grounds. The Rancho Nuevo arribos shrank below 4,000. Although Mexican Kemp’s Ridleys have staged a modest comeback (the population is now calculated at 8,000), the April 20th explosion of a British Petroleum deep-sea drilling rig on the Macondo Prospect (with apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez) 130 miles southeast of New Orleans could spell doomsday for these primordial creatures.


Across the Gulf, Mexican authorities are watching this travesty unfold with furrowed brows. The blow-out of the Deepwater Horizon platform that killed 11 and wounded 17 workers is now the largest oil spill in U.S. history, almost doubling the size of the Exxon Valdez fiasco in Alaskan waters (10,000,000 gallons) and threatening biblical devastation of Caribbean wildlife from Mexico to Cuba. Already, Gulf Coast fishing grounds have been shut down, shrimp and oyster beds contaminated, colonies of marine mammals such as dolphins and manatees are menaced, and bird life, particularly brown pelicans, is at extreme risk. In just the first 20 days of the catastrophe, 156 dead Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles were counted.


The good news — at least for Mexico — is that deep-water oil plumes have been caught up in loop currents that threaten environmental mayhem as far east as the Florida Keys and Communist Cuba, but will not touch home. The bad news is that, come August, when the hurricane season blows in (2010 is being touted as a record year for tropical hurricanes with 15 giant storms headed for the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico), those currents will shift dramatically south towards Mexico. Even now, deep water “cyclones” are sweeping gobs of oil towards Veracruz and Tamaulipas turtle breeding grounds, and Mexico’s environmental secretary, Rafael Elvira, is preparing to file suit against BP, whose $325 billion earnings in 2009 is larger than Mexico’s total annual budget.


BP efforts to plug the leak with everything from old tires to tons of mud, robot submarines and never-before-tested “domes” have met with serial failure. A slant drill to relieve pressure on the undersea gusher will not be in place until August, when the currents turn towards Mexico. Kemp’s Ridleys nest from April through August.


President Felipe Calderon’s brow is further corrugated by the prospect that the mammoth BP spill will torpedo his pledge to privatize (he calls it “modernize”) both Mexico’s oil industry and PEMEX, the national petroleum consortium. The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, a joint venture between BP, Halliburton, and TransOcean (controlled by a Swiss holding company), has certainly slowed, if not slain, Calderon’s plans to contract similar transnationals for deep sea drilling in Mexico’s slice of the Gulf.


According to U.S. Department of Energy evaluations, Mexico has only nine years of proven reserves left before it becomes a net oil importer. Major offshore wells like Cantarell in the Sound of Campeche are played out, and no new land-based deposits have been located. Rummaging through the remains of the old Chicontepec field in Veracruz (Halliburton is an important subcontractor) has yielded meager results.


One joke making the rounds has Calderon delighted by the BP spill, because it will bring more oil to Mexican waters.


In the vision of Big Oil, Mexico’s only hope for economic survival lies in its “aguas profundas,” or deep waters, five miles down in the Gulf. Of course, only Big Oil has the technology to get at these riches. According to the transnationals, PEMEX must be reformed and partner up with them (“an association of capitals”) for a percentage of the take. So-called risk contracts are currently barred by the Mexican Constitution. 


Following orders from his backers (Halliburton, the number one PEMEX subcontractor, was a generous contributor to Calderon’s fraud-tarred 2006 election victory), the Mexican president submitted “energy reform” legislation to Congress in 2008 that laid out a “strategic alliance” with Big Oil and “flexibilization” of PEMEX opening the state company to private investment and risk contracts. The Calderon media machine cranked up an infomercial campaign depicting an azure Caribbean under which Mexico’s true wealth lay buried. “The Treasure of Mexico” was repeatedly shown at prime time on this distant neighbor nation’s two-headed television monopoly, Televisa and TV Azteca.


Mexico is fast running out of oil, the president warned to make his point. Deep sea drilling is the only option. “Energy reform” was put on congressional fast track.


By seeking to privatize Mexico’s petroleum industry, Felipe Calderon is swimming against global currents. World-class producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia are consolidating their state-run oil companies, Glasprom and Aramco, rather than selling them off to the private sector.


Petroleum is a volatile liquid in the Mexican mix. Oil and sovereignty have been joined at the hip ever since depression-era president Lazaro Cardenas expropriated and nationalized the industry in 1938 from Anglo and American owners — the so-called Seven Sisters — when they defied the Mexican Supreme Court during an oil workers’ strike. Those opposed to Calderon’s scheme went into hullabaloo mode to push back his privatization legislation.


Ex-left presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, from whom many Mexicans believe Calderon stole the 2006 election, organized his social base and the “Adelitas,” women partisans dressed up as “soldaderas” or female fighters in the Mexican revolution, donned sombreros and long skirts, toy carbines and bandaleros of fake bullets crisscrossed across their breasts, and encircled the Mexican Senate. Inside both houses of congress, Lopez Obrador’s colleagues seized the podiums and paralyzed all legislative activity for ten days.


The stand-off resulted in a series of nationally televised debates over the next four months during which energy experts, academics, Big Oil reps, PEMEX honchos, lawyers, leftists, senators, deputies, impresarios, and even a poet or two argued about the privatization proposal. The debates were carried live on a big screen in the great Zocalo plaza, where hundreds of outraged citizens gathered every afternoon to cuss out the privatizers.


By autumn 2008, a compromise was struck between Calderon’s PAN party and the former ruling PRI, which still holds a majority in both houses. Anti-Lopez Obrador elements within the left-center PRD also signed off on the deal, which delineated hundreds of exploration tracts in Mexican deep sea waters, but put a hold on transnational participation and risk contracts. The compromise did not please the transnationals, but Calderon okayed it reluctantly and was preparing fresh legislation to assuage their concerns when the Deepwater Horizon blew out at the bottom of the Gulf, putting the kibosh on Big Oil’s pipedreams.


The struggle to stop the privatization of PEMEX is symbolic and illusory. Thirty one out of the company’s 41 divisions are, in effect, subcontracted out to the likes of BP and Halliburton;  most contracts are concentrated in the PEP or exploration and perforation sector. Ironically, players like BP, the biggest producer in the Gulf of Mexico today, and Shell are reincarnations of British interests that dominated petroleum production in Veracruz before expropriation — Royal Dutch Shell evolved from Lord Cowdry’s (Weetman Pierson) Aguila Oil. Moreover, Exxon is reported to be dickering for BP (which now incorporates Amoco and Atlantic-Richfield), a merger that would restore John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil taken down by trustbusters in 1911. Standard Oil’s James Doheny and Pierson ruled Mexican oilfields before 1938, and once threatened to secede and form their own “Republic of The Gulf of Mexico.” 


The U.S. and Mexico dispute a pair of potentially abundant fields in the deep waters of the Gulf. Designated “Donas,” the eastern polygon is triangulated between the Yucatan, New Orleans, and Cuba. The much-larger (16,000 square kilometers) western polygon sits between Tamaulipas and Texas. Mexico’s share of the western “Dona” (62%) purportedly holds up to 34,000,000,000 barrels, twice current reserves.


Preliminary delineation of the Donas was agreed upon by Washington and Mexico City in 2000, and deep-sea drilling is set to begin as early as next year. Chevron and Shell have reportedly already won contracts to work the U.S. sites. But Mexico does not have the technology to get at its “treasure” and Houston oil guru George Baker confirms that it will be another decade before PEMEX comes into possession of the tools to drill baby drill at such depths.


Advocates for continued state control of Mexico’s oil like Professor Fabio Barbosa of the National Autonomous University (UNAM) rebut the claim that PEMEX cannot drill deep, citing development of the Nab platform in mile-deep waters off Yucatan  (the Dona reserves are thought to be three to five miles down in the Gulf.)


In a recent El Universal op-ed, Barbosa recalled then-BP vice president Cris Sladen’s warning to a 2006 oil conference in Veracruz that Mexico would go belly-up if it didn’t dissolve PEMEX and let the latest version of the Seven Sisters handle the deep sea exploration and drilling.


Closer to the bottom of the food chain, the voices of the turtles are not heard in this debate between privatizers and nationalists. Deep sea drilling presages unprecedented carnage for their already exhausted species. BP itself has an unblemished record of species genocide — its Arctic projects threaten protected bowhead whales in the Beaufort Sea and a 900,000 gallon spill in Prudhoe Bay in 2000 plus its plans to trash the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge put dozens of species, from Polar bears and caribou to the Arctic tern, the longest-flying migratory bird on Planet Earth, on the brink of extinction.


In an exhibition of unbridled cynicism, BP greenwashes its tarnished image with full-page New York Times professions of its concern for the environment and by handing out conservation awards and grants. So far as is known, no Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle has ever won one.


The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest liken the American continent to the back of a turtle — humans are allowed to live on it but must do so in harmony with the planet. “Turtle Island” is the translation of the name of the place where we live in several Indian languages, a designation that once lent its name to Gary Snyder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poems imploring environmental respect and salvation.


But the poet’s metaphors do not carry much weight in the boardroom. BP and its cronies in corporate crime and capitalist greed have put Turtle Island at the top of their hit list.          


John Ross is back in “El Monstruo,” the title of his latest cult classic (“pulsating and gritty” the NY Post) and can be reached at johnross@igc.org

The facts of Cloris

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The facts of Cloris

arts@sfbg.com

STAGE With nearly 250 credits in film, television, and stage roles to her name, Cloris Leachman is a true entertainment icon. It’s hard to believe the ever-vivacious and lively actress got her start in show business competing in the Miss America pageant back in 1946, but the now 84-year-old star has generously filled a career spanning more than 60 years.

But age is irrelevant when talking to Leachman, who continues to work with a full schedule in film and television projects as her solo stage show comes to San Francisco this week at the Rrazz Room. Speaking by phone from Palm Springs, where her former husband, George Englund lives — or as she says, her “Once upon a time” husband — “I don’t like to say my ‘ex.’ I don’t think that’s appropriate. It doesn’t mean what happened,” she said.

“A couple of years ago my family got all concerned about me. I don’t really know what it was, but they felt I wasn’t my old self. My daughter talked to her father, and they decided I should write a book, have a one woman show, do talks — and we did it all,” Leachman said, laughing in a deeply infectious and endearing way.

Incorporating spoken passages along with a little piano, singing, and a healthy dose of humor, the show promises to touch on a broad spectrum of Leachman’s career, which includes notable performances as the bombshell beauty in the noir classic Kiss Me Deadly (1955); her Oscar-winning role as neglected wife Ruth Popper in The Last Picture Show (1971); a long string of successful television appearances (which have garnered her nine Emmys) on programs including The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Phyllis, and, of course, her portrayal of Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein (1974).

The normally forthcoming Leachman demurred when asked about particulars of the show, preferring that people see it for themselves. She did stress that one of her favorite parts of this show — which has been performed in several warm-up gigs leading up to her arrival here — has been interacting and meeting with her fans.

“That’s the fun part, that’s the other half of your show,” she said. “We laugh and hug and cry — having a live audience is thrilling.”

Reminiscing about some of her favorite memories of San Francisco, Leachman espoused her love of the city’s cuisine before commenting — with somewhat embarrassed but gleeful candor — on her fling in a local hotel with Gene Hackman in the 1970s, an assignation she revealed in her autobiography, Cloris, released last year.

“We met in the lobby and he asked if I wanted to have dinner, so we had dinner. I don’t know what happened, we just got on fire, we couldn’t run fast enough to the room,” she laughed heartily. “I remember the first 10 seconds after we got in the room, but I don’t remember anything after that — isn’t that terrible?”

After this week’s shows, Leachman has an array of projects on the horizon, including a new show on Fox from the creators of My Name Is Earl and a role in the film The Fields, a psychological thriller due out in the fall. She will also appear in a movie called You Again with her friend and former Mary Tyler Moore costar Betty White.

Asked about any possible secrets to her success, her openness and self-deprecating humor showed themselves. “I always went on the Johnny Carson show after I’d done a character so people would know I wasn’t that character,” she said seriously, before cracking herself up, and laughing hysterically. “I was even worse!” 

CLORIS! A ONE-WOMAN SHOW

Through June 11

Wed-Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 7 p.m., $40–$45

Rrazz Room

222 Mason, SF

www.therrazzroom.com

 

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Schedules are for Wed/2–Tues/8 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $4-10. “CCSF Production Class,” short films, Thurs, 8. “Mike Kuchar: An Evening of Collected Consciousness,” Sat, 8.

CAFÉ OF THE DEAD 3208 Grand, Oakl; (510) 931-7945. Free. “Independent Filmmakers Screening Nite,” Wed, 6:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. Sex and the City 2 (King, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10. Babies (Balmès, 2010), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. Looking for Eric (Loach, 2010), call for dates and times. Touching Home (Miller and Miller, 2009), call for dates and times. Micmacs (Jeunet, 2010), June 4-10, call for times.

DECO LOUNGE 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025, www.decosf.com. Free. “Queer Cinema 101,” Mon, 10. Holly DeVille hosts this weekly show highlighting films that have had an impact on queer culture.

FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK This week: San Geronimo Community Center, 6350 Sir Francis Drake, San Geronimo; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Napoleon Dynamite (Hess, 2004), Fri, 8.

GAIA ARTS CENTER 2120 Allston, Berk; www.culturedisabilitytalent.org. $5-20. “Culture/Disability/Talent presents: Superfest 2010 International Disability Film Festival,” Fri, 11-5; Sat, noon-5.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Fast Food Nation (Linklater, 2006), Wed, 7:30.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Brought to Light: Recent Acquisitions to the PFA Collection:” Adventurera (Gout, 1949), Thurs, 7; Lola Montez (Ophuls, 1955), Sat, 8; La Pointe Courte (Varda, 1954), Sun, 5. “Akira Kurosawa Centennial:” Rashomon (1950), Fri, 7; Drunken Angel (1948), Fri, 8:50; Throne of Blood (1957), Sun, 6:50. “Strange Tales of the Whistler:” •The Power of the Whistler (Landers, 1945), and Voice of the Whistler (Castle, 1945), and Mysterious Intruder (Castle, 1946), Wed, 7; •The Secret of the Whistler (Sherman, 1946), and The Thirteenth Hour (Clemens, 1947), Sat, 5:30.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Hot Tub Time Machine (Pink, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7:15, 9:25 (also Wed, 2). Green Zone (Greengrass, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:30 (also Sat, 2). The Secret of Kells (More and Twomey, 2009), Sun-Tues, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sun, 2, 4).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. BAVC presents: Life 2.0, plus shorts, Wed, 7:30. Big River Man (Maringouin, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 9:30. La Mission (Bratt, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7:15. American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein (Ridgen and Rossier, 2009), Thurs, 7, 9:15.

VICTORIA 2961 16th Street, SF; (415) 863-7576. $10. Pelada (Boughen, Fergusson, Oxenham, and White, 2010), Thurs, 8. VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.thirdi.org. $10-16. “3rd I Films Presents: 3rd I’s Queer Eye:” “Queer South Asian Shorts,” Sun, 5; Freddy Mercury: The Untold Story (Director’s Cut 2010) (Dolezal, 2010), Sun, 7.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.thrillville.net. $10. “Thrillville’s Beatnik Bash!:” •A Bucket of Blood (Corman, 1989), and The Beat Generation (Haas, 1959), Thurs, 8.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Trash Humpers (Korine, 2009), Thurs-Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2, 4.

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