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| 2006 Best Of The Bay: A Vision Of The Future | ||||||||||||
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| lllustration by Mona Caron |
Long before I had the hope knocked out of me, I thought a lot about the future of entertainment. Those were my larval pop-junkie Bush I years, and after all, I had no choice — or perhaps my choices were just sharply constricted: being stuck at home watching Beverly Hills 90210, perming my bob, stacking my black rubber bracelets, listening to Elvis Costello on pater's wood-grain stereo-sideboard, and wondering when those grillions of cable channels would begin to materialize. TiVo meant nothing but a lost Jackson bro. YouTube sounded like an epic put-down. I pined for a time when every book, record, and game would become instantly available for download at 4:34 a.m., that dark, mindlessly restless shopping night of the soul. When MySpace would put a zillion hungry bands at the tips of our soundcards. When the final retro revival would cycle around so hard and so fast it would swallow its own tail and — forget the ’50s through ’80s —tomorrow would be trendy once more.
But what am I talking about? I'm the retro kid who’s been stuck in the past from day one, namely yesterday — the moment Moms shook an antique Japanese rattle in my mug and Pops plied me with ’50s crooner vinyl. I'm currently a Love Story of Ali McGraw gaucho-clad, early-’70s Ivy League grooviness — when I'm not kitted out in ’60s-era Jane Birkin minis or arch-’80s Patti Smith stovepipes. Yet now, as the mirror spontaneously shatters, I can see: I clearly need help. I obviously ought to be looking forward — toward a brighter, shinier, friskier, more progressive future, unshackled to history, heartache, moldy oldies, mildew, and tattered vintage clothing. Futurama — nay! Future — yeh!
So come closer, my pretties, my hotties, my snotties, my shoddies, and let me dig into my own personal treasury of song and sing of the future and diversions great and small. It goes a little bit like this:
Playstation3, Smellovision, and surround sound — gather round
CD-ROMS, pet rocks, and hula hoops — lay your money down
iTunes, ringtones, and Imax — once thought so highbrow
Word Perfect, Chia Pet, and eight-track — before you we bow
Trend, trend, follow the trend
The marketplace is deep, the consumers are dense
Filled to the brim with glitter and bling
Magpies are we, drawn by bright, shiny things
Just like Mikey are we — we'll eat anything
Excuse me while I adjust the Auto-Tune. I'm afraid I haven't been able to do much about the bummer backing, the distressing context. Hey, I tried voting, but last I heard we were still contending with that wretched racket emanating from the war room of G.W. Bush. Even telltale signs of life in the cineplexes — or arty-plexes — looked dire. Embarcadero Cinemas June 30 lineup: An Inconvenient Truth,Wordplay, and The Road to Guant ánamo. Worthy, solid, important even — and as deadly dull as freeze-dried lame-duck doo-doo. Imagine Al Gore "curating" art-house cinema. Too late, he did.
Yes, the present is bleak. So why not picture what a diverting night out (or in) might look like 5, 10, 15 years from now — what with the tug between our ever-expanding home entertainment pods and the need to commune with masses of burning strangers, high-fiving yahoos, or booty-bumping bozos who spill your $15 ginger-pomegranatini on your polished glass slippers. Will we even need to go out in the year 2016? Won’t we just telecommute to da club to grind with virtual, virus-free strangers? Likely, yes, we'll always need to go out, even if it's just for an entertaining walk down the block or to the nearest jet pack, as long as there are trashed, flea-bitten, gadget-ridden hovels to shun, exes to abhor, roommates to duck — iPod, vidPods, podunks, entertainment pod, or no pod.
Yes, DVDs may be biting into theatrical-release dollars, the major-label music industry may be in a perpetual tailspin, and all kinds of lug nuts are looking to games as the new synaesthetic content driver for all of the above. Let the "long tail" wag the dog — as Wired editor Chris Anderson might have it in his new book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, the niche-driven marketplace may be killing the blockbuster — but let a thousand flowers bloom. We will always want to flee into the best that escapism has to offer.
So gather round again, bodkins — don't worry, your precious ears won't be abused further — and gaze into the crystal ball to glimpse the future through the jaundiced, bloodshot eyeballs of one who has yawned her way through the biggest hits of the season, thinks she's seen it all, and semi-arrogantly believes, as a fellow wage slave recently put it, that grabbing for the next brass ring will turn her fingers green.
2011: Bowing to the omnipresence and uncontrollability of the e-mail spam onslaught, intrepid and all-too-easily-entertained creative types are using the materials they've been given and making fun of virtual junk food. While Guardian writers spend much of their free time reworking spam subject lines into free verse, Amazon's top-selling game of the year turns out to be Grand Theft Auto-Spammer. Your mission is to get a massive shipment — so large, it'll impress her! — of "male enhancement" drugs over the border as you simultaneously gather billions of IPs via your Camaro's dashboard laptop.
Furthermore, Meg Ryan's adopted tween Kyrgyzstani daughter stars in the sequel to her mom's ’90s hit, You've Got Spam.
as the culture turns to considering professional spammers the rebel wing of the US marketing economy. Startup production monkeys who flood your inbox begin to refer to themselves as "spam studs." MySpace is supplanted by YourSpace, an antisocial/all-flame-war site where visitors and dwellers regularly attempt to sabotage each other's sites with spammage touting bad stock tips and overpriced placebos. Clubbing went out with the ’00s — now one only convenes with others for yoga class, group colon-cleanses, and most important, addiction to spam spewage (ASS) meetings.
2016: The two-thousand-teens are barely halfway over, and the frayed remnants of the major-label music industry are now completely subsumed by triumphant reissue arms Legacy and Rhino. Doood: the ’10s Pop and Culture Box, the year's biggest release, cannibalizes microniche/genre hits from a mere five to six years previous — oldies by Sufjan Stevens and the Pacemakers, Dowager Queens of the Stone Age, Radiodead, and that venerable, quasi-retired Irish group U2-TIRED — while wizened record collectors continue to troll, capture, and release obscurities, radio copy, TV ephemera, and sonic detritus by antacid jingle writers, Madison Avenue ad execs, Christian children's puppet theater musical directors, and retired librarians with bad cases of angina. Reunions of bands playing boomer rock, punk, grunge, and every despicable musical movement imaginable continue apace.
In other entertainment news, all movie theaters have been turned into Crunch fitness palaces, Sam's Clubs, or Targetcos (consolidation, like time, stops for no one), and now we all upload films and TV shows at a brisk clip directly to our cerebral cortexes. Of course, those now-firmly-established, intrepid share-folder-spam studs have also found a way to toss some vaginal itch cream commercials and Lexus ads into the works, so we find ourselves using much of the time we'd ordinarily spend watching Bob le Flambeur at 3 a.m. on a school night actually scrubbing the gray matter with organic versions of AdAware and Bug Be-Gone.
2021: Once again, with feeling, the last two, seriously aged members of the Who reunite — Depends sponsors the worldwide tour. Oh, you say that's too easy, but then adult diapers make everything easier, don't they? Anyway, in the year 2021, Aquarioid, if we are barely still alive, if man and woman can survive, we won't have any legs or eyes — but we will have fully functioning, fecal-fueled entertainment body-packs that will give us a regular drip of news, entertainment, celebrity gossip, RSS feeds, fine art, sudoku, bridge columns, and death metal message-board fodder at regular intervals. In fact, most people will have traded in their legs — and hydrofoils — for attachable La-Z-Boys. See, some major furniture manufacturers managed to survive the flame-outs of the spam-heroism years.
Now that you've seen the future, what do you have to say for yourself? Ah, you're speechless? Well, open up — any orifice will do — and we'll get that fecal-fueled entertainment body-pack started. Whoosh! Take us away.
Editor's Picks
By now the art bar formula in San Francisco is a well-tested one: build a simple venue that functions as an art gallery by day and a drinking-dancing spot at night. This doubles the use of one space while providing rotating artwork to decorate the club — and intoxicated patrons to buy the art. Everybody wins. The Bar of Contemporary Art is the second art bar opened by the Blasthaus team, who brought us Rx Gallery in the Tenderloin. This space is far more airy and comfortable, with high ceilings and a wall of windows that open onto Jessie Street (which may become a pedestrian alley as part of the Old Mint renovation). Blasthaus specializes in promoting early-tech artwork (the opening exhibit was full of writhing humanoid robots) and booking rather big international electronica acts into its rather small venues. Already on the docket at BOCA are Matthew Dear, Swayzak, the Hacker, and Mylo — all acts with many more local fans than could actually fit into this club to hear them. Luckily, you can buy advance tickets online.
414 Jessie, SF. (415) 756-8825, www.sfboca.com
BEST PROOF THAT THE DEAD CAN DANCE
The age-old question "Can corpses be sexy?" is unequivocally answered in the affirmative when the Living Dead Girlz take the stage. You don't have to be a necrophiliac to enjoy the shimmy-shake moves of this seven-lass troupe as they strut to spooky tunes (think Screamin' Jay Hawkins) with an undead rhythm not seen since Jacko's "Thriller" video. Though there's a Village People–esque flavor to each gal's themed character ("Cowgirl Zombie," "Pippi Long-Zombie," etc.), their unifying hotness (or is that dead, blue coldness?) is pretty much all you'll notice during their routines. A late-May gig opening for The Elm Street Murders at the DNA Lounge culminated in the Girlz chomping on one of their own — but you never know with zombies. This is probably the only burlesque show in history where your brains just might become a dancer's din-din.
www.livingdeadgirlz.com
The differences between plain old bingo and Bingotopia at the Knockout go beyond the most immediately obvious: blue-haired old ladies have been replaced by an abundance of Mission kids straddling the rockabilly–bike coalition scenes. For one, the "grand prizes" are usually quite nominal. For another, the rules are designed to thwart the players. The cost of each reusable bingo card is one drink. With each additional drink, players earn an additional card. So the people with the most cards have the best odds of winning, yet they're also the most likely to miss numbers because they're the most drunk. Genius. And the prize for winning is a dollar-store trinket and ... a free drink. You may remember your lively hosts at Bingotopia from their night at Sadie's Flying Elephant (RIP). They come equipped with vintage bingo cards, as well as a lottery-style floaty Ping-Pong-ball number-picking system, and a DJ spins groovy lounge background music. The fun runs Thursdays, 7 to 10 p.m., and players can buy in for a $2 Hamm's beer. The more games you play, the more you'll feel like a winner — even if you never win.
3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994, www.theknockoutsf.com
Industry wisdom once had it that E-40 was too eccentric to rep the Bay (or "Yay," as he rechristened it) on a national level: His voice was too high; he rapped too fast; his slang was too impenetrable. Yet given a major push, thanks to signing with crunk king Lil Jon's BME/Warner label, 40 delivered like he always said he would. His 14th album, My Ghetto Report Card, debuted at number one on Billboard’s pop chart and number three on its R&B chart, while the single "Tell Me When to Go" inspired everyone from MTV to USA Today to investigate the singular concept of "hyphy." Throughout the hoopla, "40 Watta" has remained a patient and generous exponent of Bay Area hip-hop, reflecting his shine on the scene as a whole as well as building his own roster of artists on Sick wid It. Extra props to Pops for his son, Droop-E, who's emerged as a major producer in addition to dropping his own album, The Fedi Fetcher and the Money Stretcher (Sick Wid It/Navarro, 2006), with partner B-Slimm. And don't forget E-Feezy Radio (Sundays on KMEL-FM, 3 to 5 p.m.), still the best place on the dial for new Bay Area jams.
www.e-40.com
In a perfect world, everyone could create art and not worry about funding the roof over their head. The city would be so safe that no one would bother locking the front door. Until we've built that utopia, the Mission Arts and Performance Project ushers us a little further down the path. A bimonthly visual and performing arts series that unfolds in Mission District garages, gardens, and small arts spaces, MAPP aims to lure in people who see traditional galleries as pretentious or otherwise inaccessible. The sprawling neighborhood party and art walk is hosted by a multiethnic crew of organizers and includes a fiesta of films, backyard bonfires, and whatever else people dream up, be it mesmerizing West African drummers or sexy salsa-dancing stilt walkers. Kick off the day with an afternoon of outdoor art for kids and then hopscotch through the Mission in the evening, mixing it up with cutting-edge artists and curious locals.
www.redpoppyarthouse.org/mappabout.html
BEST PLACE TO PRACTICE PERFECTION
Walk by a certain Capp Street Victorian any afternoon, and you'll hear a mellifluous wall of violins, cellos, and voices raised in song: the San Francisco Community Music Center in full harmonic swing. Founded in 1921 with a mission of making music and voice lessons accessible to all, regardless of financial status, the center instructs an astoundingly diverse cross section of the city, from precocious tots to senior citizens, low income to well heeled. Students take private instrument or voice lessons in a supportive atmosphere, and if you attend one of the free student or faculty recitals, you'll understand the conservatory caliber of the talent practicing behind these walls. More than half the center’s students benefit from some sort of scholarship or sliding-scale fee, and in addition to singing lessons and the opportunity to join an orchestra, beginning to advanced instruction is available in more than 20 instruments and nine musical styles, including Western classical, Chinese, and jazz.
544 Capp, SF. (415) 647-6015, www.sfcmc.org
BEST DISPLAY OF HUMAN INTERCONNECTEDNESS
If you've only seen the promo banners for the Museum of the African Diaspora, one of San Francisco's newest museums, you're truly missing the bigger picture. The banner features the image of a child, but a closer view of the original, visible from outside the museum downtown on Mission Street, reveals it to be a towering two-story mosaic of 2,000 photo portraits. The dynamic and remarkably inclusive museum loosely focuses on ethnic identity, and the photo mural's many-hued subjects embody the institution's premise: that we are all connected by common genetic ancestors in Africa, the cradle of civilization. Using art and culture to trace historical and contemporary themes of origin, movement, adaptation, and transformation, the interactive and multimedia exhibits explore music, culinary traditions, rituals and ceremonies, and oral histories of slavery passages. Poised to change the way we think about art and identity, MoAD is unifying and unprecedented.
685 Mission, SF. (415) 358-7200, moadsf.org
An aging Technicolor bus trips the night fantastic, rumbling in style from club to club. A roving art party? An ambulatory icon from south of la frontera? However you classify the Mexican Bus, it has some muy fine pizzazz. Climb aboard this funky-flashy relic on wheels and club-hop until closing time without fretting about cover charges, vulture-style parking maneuvers, or taking the wheel under the influence of too many margaritas. After your fabulous host sanctifies the evening with a round of tequila shots, you're whisked to some of the best Latin-themed nights in town. Flaunt your salsa moves on the dance floor and then rejuvenate your weary feet en route to the next spot, or continue shimmying down the aisle as the colored lights flash and the mariachi music plays on. At the end of the night, your tootsies may be tired and your head a little light, but everyone gets home safely.
(415) 546-3747, www.mexicanbus.com
BEST HIP-HOPPER WITH A DICTATOR'S MONIKER
West Oakland rap star J-Stalin came across his decidedly Soviet stage name in 11th grade history class. "We got the same initials," the man born Jovan Smith points out. "Plus he was short like me, but he was always smashin' on everybody." Since his youthful debut on Richie Rich's Nixon Pryor Roundtree (Ten-Six, 2002), J-Stalin's been doing just that, appearing on tracks with the likes of the Mob Figaz, the Delinquents, and F.A.B. while working on his solo debut, On Behalf of tha Streets, for tha Mekanix's Zoo Entertainment production company. Planned for a September release on City Hall, OBOTS has already scored KMEL airplay with "My 808," "Party Jumpin’,” featuring Jacka, and an edited version of "Fuck You." Stalin also has two major collaborations in the works: Everythang Must Go, an album made under the moniker the Go Boyz, with tha Mekanix and Kaz Kyzah of the Team, set to drop on Moedoe before the year's end, and an as-yet-untitled duo disc with Beeda Weeda, which E-40 intends to release on Sick wid It. Forget the cold war; Stalin is hot.
www.myspace.com/jstalinofficialpage
BEST SMORGASBORD OF SLEAZY GLAMOUR
Is there nothing you can't get in the Tenderloin? A toothless smile, a mental vacation, an Uncle named Leona, and best of all, Aunt Charlie's, a classic of sleazy downtown glamour. This stall-size bar is where it's at for the underground club kids of today, but it also attracts enough unique Tenderloin locals and curious where-the-hell-did-they-come-from visitors to make it ground zero for nightly one-of-a-kind adventures (keep your wallet in your sock). On weekends, Aunt Charlie’s hosts the amazing Hot Boxxx Girls, tongue-stunning drag performers who've been around the block enough to know you wouldn't know what to do with them if you had the chance. And on Thursdays freaky denizens of the club underground come down for the Tubesteak Connection, DJ Bus Station John's night of old-school bathhouse disco grooves. Other nights see either incredibly nubile scenesters rocking the rocky turntables or street performers on a bender or both. Probably both. If it ain't here, basically, you probably have to save for it.
133 Turk, SF. (415) 441-2922, www.auntcharlieslounge.com
BEST OFF-BROADWAY AFFAIR OFF UNION SQUARE
SF Playhouse is a relatively young theater (three seasons and counting) but so savvy and professional it makes a shoestring look like ruby slippers, budget-wise, and — better yet — you won't lose your proverbial shirt at the door. Founders Susi Damilano and Bill English have been in the theater scene for years, and their dedication, smarts, and skills (which include acting and directing) have been paying off, attracting first-rate local talent and appreciative audiences to the roomy theater they've built at the back of a formerly shuttered, 1910 Greek-revival building in San Francisco's theater district; the beautiful lobby faces Sutter Street through watery panes of hundred-year-old glass. English (a contractor by day) also designs and builds some of the best-looking and imaginative sets you'll see on any local stage. Beginning this season, SF Playhouse will be ensconced in temporary quarters directly across the street while the building is retrofitted, but it’ll still be putting on smart, contemporary new plays (many of them Bay Area premieres), as well as the occasional classic or musical, with high yet surprisingly easy-to-afford production values.
533 Sutter, SF. (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.com
Though he rarely performs these days, Robert Moses has always been a fearless dancer. Hurling himself into dizzying spins and arching leaps, spiraling into the ground and shooting into space like a rocket, he’s never seemed to know the term "risky behavior." The same take-no-prisoners attitude infuses the choreography for his 11-year-old Robert Moses' Kin company, based in San Francisco. His dancers, a gutsy and diverse group of give-it-everything-you’ve-got performers, move with the greatest of ease from relaxed jazz swings to balletic extensions, from street moves to modern dance gestures. Inclusiveness is also what marks Moses's dance-making: He used a taped conversation between African American intellectuals for A Biography of James Baldwin. His abstract solo Doscongio is set to Chopin. For The Lost Parade he developed 10 movement phrases and had his colleague Joanna Haigood finish the piece. The Cause explored hate in young people, and The President's Daughter looked at the power of (white) men over (black) women. Never overtly narrative, but rarely without a least a thread of a story, Moses's dances speak with a strong, original voice.
(415) 252-8384, www.robertmoseskin.org
BEST CREEPY UP-AND-COMING ARTIST
Populating the cartoonish beauty of an animated wonderland with a fascinatingly dreadful bestiary of dissected, mutilated (and mutilating) fauna, San Francisco artist Matt Furie ladles the chills into cute, and vice versa. His drawings of people, animals, and other life-forms are fantastically creepy, depicting mummified, disfigured "things" with extra or missing body parts, often in far-off lands (a pastel ancient Egypt springs to mind). Furie tends to freeze his subjects in odd moments — mammals eat their young, monkeys hump bunny rabbits, a cat wearing a green Speedo is caught midflight. Still, there is a beauty to his work’s soft colors and amazingly accurate details (well, as accurate as a group of furry friends flying around on a hamburger can get, anyway). Furie is also currently part of the dance troupe Flavor of the City, which performs all over the Bay Area.
www.mattfurie.com
BEST SILVER-GELATIN TIME MACHINE
Formerly known as Artseal, Gendell Gallery shows off classic, gorgeous black-and-white American prints from the 20th century. Special exhibits include everything from glowing male nudes to classic photos of the 1930s. The gallery recently expanded to include three exhibition rooms, the largest of which usually focuses on work by a single artist, such as Dorothea Lange. The other two rooms showcase a wild mix of figurative portraiture, social documentary, and coming-of-age images. The gorgeous reproductions give a glimpse of the past, including vivid scenes of wartime and the Great Depression. Many of the best images make an emotional connection while conveying a lovely humor. But they'll also make you see familiar forms in a new way.
1847 Larkin, SF. (415) 567-3523, www.gendellgallery.com
For some 20 years, Andrew Joron has been a mainstay of the Bay Area's experimental poetry scene, beginning as a "science fiction poet" before moving on to what Charles Borkhuis described in "Land of the Signifieds" (1992) as an amalgam of "Late Surrealism and Textual [i.e. Language] Poetry." "The pilot alone knows/That the plot is missing its/Eye," opens one poem in Joron's latest book, Fathom (Black Square Editions, 2003), giving an indication of the solemn humor and linguistic play motivating his work. Named one of the Village Voice's "Top 25 Books of 2003," Fathom consolidated Joron's reputation as much with its prose assessment of poetry in the post-9/11 world, "The Emergency," as with the poems themselves. Three years after publication, Fathom continues to be reviewed, while Calvin Bedient in the Spring 2006 Chicago Review likens Joron to Adorno and Debord. Joron's essay on 19th-century American decadent George Sterling recently appeared in the anthology Bay Poetics (Faux Press, 2006) and will be republished, along with "The Emergency," in a volume of selected prose, The Cry at Zero, due next year from Counterpath Press.
www.atonalistdoc.blogspot.com
Without the Demolition Men (DJ Devro and Impereal), it's questionable whether the Bay's newly emerging hip-hop mixtape scene would've gotten off the ground. If this sounds like an exaggeration, consider that the enterprising duo have put out more than 30 releases since 2004, hosted by national luminaries like David Banner and Stat Quo as well as local stars like the Team and Federation associate el Dorado Red. And we're not talking burnt CD-Rs; we're talking full-color graphics, printed discs, posters, flyers, the works. None of this would be particularly amazing in NYC, but it took a couple of outsiders — Devro hails from Southern California, while Impereal came up in Queens — to show that the Bay had enough homegrown talent to support such an amped-up release schedule. Having lit the local fire, the Demolition Men have recently embarked on more ambitious projects: producing full-length albums of mostly exclusive material, including their best seller “Animal Planet,” featuring Mob Figaz Husalah and Jacka, as well as J-Stalin's Early Morning Shift and Fillmore rapper and former Fully Loaded member Big Rich's Block Tested, Hood Approved. In the process of developing acts like Vincent Price and Chi-town transplant Alias John Brown, the Demolition Men continue to rewrite the rules of Bay Area hip-hop.
www.myspace.com/demolitionmenmusic
New music ensemble Nanos Operetta has enough energy and appetite to make its 6 members seem like 60. Eclectic in taste, influence, instrumentation, and style, Nanos's restless architecture concentrates a musical cosmos — embracing Philip Glass, Carl Stalling, Eastern European folk, Persian pop, Leonard Cohen, and Bernard Herrmann — into frenetic, wistful, brooding, and exuberant passages traversed by sly and languid vocal lines. Elegantly subdued front man Ali Tabatabai, who cofounded Nanos with multi-instrumentalist Max Baloian, keeps it all together beautifully, somehow. In keeping with its voracious reach, some of Nanos's most vibrant work comes in inspired collaborations with an international assortment of artists, like Iranian documentarian Bahman Kiarostami. The quarterly installments of the group’s recent 10-part performance series, 3 Drops of Blood (begun in 2004 and curated by Tabatabais), have become much-anticipated events, showcasing musical, dance, and performance works by the likes of Paul Dresher, Butoh masters Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, accordionist Guy Klucevsek, and theatrical dance troupe Kunst-Stoff. If you haven't caught it yet, you have one more chance: Installment X happens Aug. 4–5 at Project Artaud.
www.nanosoperetta.com
One mouth. One mic. A one-man vocal orchestra able to assume the language of the electronic synth, drum kit, violin, record scratch, and pretty much anything else emitting sound, Kid Beyond demonstrates his staggering vocal skills in original compositions and the occasional cover song. Using looping techniques to layer his voice on top of his voice, on top of his voice, on top of his — well, you get the picture — Kid Beyond reigns as the beatbox king of the Bay. (You'll never be able to get Portishead's Wandering Star out of your head after catching one of his sets.) Beyond performs locally all the time (check his Web site for upcoming appearances) and has opened for such acts as Keane, Buckethead, Sage Francis, and the Digital Underground. A truly charismatic performer with an incredibly soulful singing voice, this is not your run-of-the-mill lipsmacker.
www.kidbeyond.com
The reason it takes so long to get your drinks at discriminating hipster bar Rye is because they're made with so much love. The gentle muddling, the intense shaking: It's as if every cocktail comes infused with a kiss and a teardrop. The bar offers as many top-shelf bottles of rye as it can get but only seven or eight different brands of small-batch bourbon, even though the market is bonkers for it right now. And oh, what magic that rye can weave! The Rye manhattan is much darker and more complex on the palette than the easy, pleasing cherry flavors in the Maker's Mark version you'll get elsewhere. And while the manhattan will school you, Rye's sazerac will earn you an M.A. in mix-appreciationology. (We were tempted to give this bar an award for "Best Use of Bitters" instead.) It's hard to go wrong with the rest of the classic and adapted cocktails on the menu or with the trophy section of past winners of Rye's monthly cocktail competition. For maximum enjoyment, show up early and order often — the place gets crowded, and once you taste how magnificent the drinks are, the wait for the next one is torture.
688 Geary, SF. (415) 786-7803
BEST MECCA FOR THE LIGHT-HEADED
Remember when you could duck into your favorite bar after work, order a beer, and enjoy a fresh fag without inciting so much as a warning cough from the tiny corner of nonsmokers in back? Those days are over. Thanks to those pesky voters, you can no longer light up within 15 feet of a drinking establishment without getting lynched by some do-gooder in full self-righteous frenzy. You can't, that is, unless the bar happens to be a "smoke-friendly" co-op. Of the five or six legitimate bar co-ops in the city, we dig Amber on Church and 14th Street the most. The subdued lighting, rotating art installations, and vintage Mickey's Malt Liquor sign say it all: Amber is a place for chilling and smoking. There are couches all over, ashtrays aplenty, and bartenders who are just as happy making flavored mojitos as they are plopping down ice cold 40s of malt liquor. Visit soon. Places like Amber will provide a refuge for cancer-stick enthusiasts only so long as the bigwigs remain ignorant of their existence. Burn this review.
718 14th St., SF. (415) 626-7827
Who would win in a street fight, Britney Spears or the guitarist from Motörhead? What about Kelly Clarkson versus that weird stomping dude from AC/DC? The members of Smash Up Derby have been studying these bizarre hypothetical scenarios for years and have finally found the answer: both — as mashups. A seamless mixing of the vocals from one genre with the music from another, mashups (a.k.a. bootlegs) have been around on the Internet nerd circuit for years, but Smash Up Derby is the only band that performs them live. Equal parts girly glam pop and straight-up rock ’n’ roll, Smash Up Derby is San Francisco's answer to America's binary categorization problem. Gender benders Adrian Roberts and Trixxie Carr sing your favorite bubblegum tunes while the backup band grinds out classic punk rock and heavy metal, every second Friday at Bootie, America's first mashup monthly.
DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. (415) 626-1409, www.dnalounge.com
Sometimes, sitting in the nosebleed section of the War Memorial Opera House, binoculars raised to our eyeballs as we strain desperately to make out the action unfolding on the stage far, far below us, we think wistfully that there must be another way. Then we remember that there is: Donald Pippin's Pocket Opera. The Pocket, a San Francisco institution since 1978, offers chamber-style performances of classic libretti, from Der Freischütz to The Magic Flute, at a fraction of the size, and ticket price, of big-house opera. Meticulously translated into English by Pippin, who often also narrates, each production exemplifies the aesthetic that art is for everyone, not just those who can afford it (or those with a degree in music appreciation, for that matter). Accessible yet accomplished, Pocket Opera admirably demonstrates that sacrificing company quantity does not necessarily mean sacrificing quality. Best of all, you get to leave the binoculars at home.
(415) 972-8930, www.pocketopera.org
There are so many film festivals in San Francisco, you could spend all 365 days of the year sitting in the dark and not once see anything starring Jennifer Aniston. But if you have to choose, you might as well attend a film festival whose sophistication of theme and quality of curating will impress even the most blasé of the silver screen–eyed. Grab your current flame, don your best Euro-chic attire, and spend a week steeped in Germanophilia at the annual Berlin and Beyond Festival, presented by the San Francisco Goethe-Institut every January. An extensive array of movies from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, plus a mad whirl of parties, panels, and opportunities to schmooze with European film stars, the festival encompasses the best in German-language film: new releases, notable classics, shorts, student films, and a specially restored silent film with live accompaniment from the Castro Theatre's mighty Wurlitzer. Quite possibly the classiest German export to hit the States since the BMW, and a hell of a lot cheaper.
(415) 263-8760, www.goethe.de/sanfrancisco
BEST RETURN TO ROCK ’'N' ROLL ROOTS
No disrespect to the now-deceased Cherry Bar intended, but we always found it a little difficult to take seriously, what with those crusty Covered Wagon Saloon ghosts lingering in the shadows, still sporting their Mohawks and chains. Enter Annie Whiteside, our favorite former bar owner from Boardman Place (besides Helena Bail Bonds, but that's another story), whose rock connections are legendary and whose calendar of events includes such raucous CW staples as Lucifer's Hammer and Stinky's Peepshow, plus Annie's own signature standby, Punk Rock Karaoke (punks singing along to Tony Bennett and Ray Charles, geddit?). Now she's bought the Cherry site and made it her own. When we remember the Covered Wagon (what memories managed to survive the oceans of on-tap Mickey's we consumed there), we remember no-holds-barred, kick-ass, sweaty-mosh-pit rock ’n’ roll: a legacy Annie's Social Club appears to be upholding with gleeful old-school gusto.
917 Folsom, SF. (415) 974-1585, www.anniessocialclub.com
This year the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival's Shakespeare in the Park program presents The Tempest, and Miranda looks radiant in the natural light. Don't get us wrong — we love the SF Mime Troupe and all it stands for. But there's another troupe offering free outdoor theater every summer that sometimes gets taken for granted — and its historical roots are even more deeply rooted in the soil of outdoor theatrics. Since 1983, thou-o-philes in San Francisco, Oakland, Pleasanton, Cupertino, and San Mateo have been treated to first-quality Shakespeare performances in various Bay Area parks, from July through September, with costumes, sets, and productions that entwine the stunning style of the Renaissance master with the glory of all outdoors. See the movie first, read along with the Cliff Notes, or just go with the pleasurable flow of the breeze-blown Elizabethan verbiage.
www.sfshakes.org
For the full Monty of high-fashion, high-’80s regalia, nothing beats the permed and leg-warmered spectacle of fashion majors and aspiring modern performance artists. To see these rare specimens in droves — and for one of the best evenings anywhere to end before 11 p.m. — head to the thrice-annual large-scale art openings at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which feature a full bar, knock-out local bands, and that pleasantly naughty feeling that comes from being inside a museum at night. In addition to the eye candy, past patrons have been treated to an upturned truck full of smoke and monitors, a working indoor skate ramp, and a memorable Gómez-Peña live performance (you'll know one when you see one). Get on the YBCA mailing list for updates. Or better yet, become a museum member, for whom these must-go events are free.
701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org
BEST COLLECTION OF CIGARETTE LIGHTER ALTERNATIVES
There are many collectors of those iconic Pez dispensers, but you’ll never get to see their findings presented as charmingly as at curator Gary Doss’s Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia. For $3 ($1 for children under 12), you get a tour of the collection, which includes the rare glasses-wearing pineapple dispenser, the “psychedelic eye” dispenser, a Pez gun, and the original neon sign from the Pez Haas-House in Vienna. And you’ll walk away with a grasp of the Pez product’s history and role in popular culture — handy knowledge no matter how you look at it. Along with the dispensers, there are various pieces of Pez memorabilia and an assortment of vintage toys on display, including older models of Mr. Potato Head, Viewfinders, and Erector sets. Also on site is a Pez memorabilia store where you can buy dispensers new and old (priced accordingly) and a fix of that heavenly candy stuff.
214 California Drive, Burlingame. (650) 347-2301, www.burlingamepezmuseum.com
BEST SCRATCH FOR YOUR AVANT-GARDE ITCH
San Francisco Cinematheque has carried on the noble mission of preserving experimental video and film since its founding in 1961, and much of the conservation process is funded by cinephile wet-dream screenings. Each week during its three exhibition seasons, it holds events at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and California College for the Arts, often highlighting local productions — one night featuring, say, international pieces from Taiwanese filmmakers; another night, works from Jackie Moe’s local Edinburgh Castle film group. Additionally, Cinematheque puts on lectures and retrospectives of older works, as well as contributing to other cultural and educational institutions’ displays of the avant-garde — as it did with the New York Museum of Modern Art’s recent “American 8MM” exhibit.
www.sfcinematheque.org
BEST WAY TO TURN A COCKTAIL SHAKER INTO A CHARITY MONEYMAKER
If only for one night, you too can wield the glorious power that comes with bartending. In the heart of the Mission, no less, where your self-tended hotspot will be brimming with invited friends and other guests. Tips will be divided between any charity of your choice, the house bartender, and the doorperson (the latter two provided so you can’t screw things up too badly), and you still get to pocket a chunk of cash in wages. Nay, you say? Sound too preposterously good to be true? Well, it is true! Altruism has never been easier, courtesy of Elixir’s Charity Guest Bartending every Wednesday night. In order to book the club out for the night, Elixir seeks two to four guest bartenders with the ability to pack the bar (100-plus guests) and keep it that way. This isn’t nearly as difficult as it might seem, especially using an Evite and contacting the charity beforehand so it can help spread the word. Elixir is quite popular and tends to be booked a month or two in advance, so get on it — time’s a-wastin’.
3200 16th St., SF. (415) 552-1633, www.elixirsf.com
BEST PHYSICALLY INTEGRATED TROUPE
At some point during the first half of an Axis Dance Company performance, you’ll stop noticing that some of the dancers have physical disabilities and instead will find yourself in awe of the inherent beauty of well-choreographed human movement. Wheelchairs take on the identity of props, while crutches transform from walking aids into dance accessories. Most of the dancers from Axis have experienced things that would knock a normal person to his or her knees, but they've not let those experiences get the better of them. Under the artistic direction of Judith Smith, the artists at Axis have toppled mountains on the dance circuit, winning important awards here and abroad — and performing sold-out shows all year long.
1428 Alice, Ste. 200, Oakl. (510) 625-0110, www.axisdance.org
To step into Lucky JuJu in Alameda is, for men and women of a certain age, to realize the ultimate prepubescent fantasy. The small room is filled with some 20 pinball machines. These aren’t the gaudy, overly computerized monstrosities of today, but the electro-mechanical marvels of the ’60s and ’70s. Famous machines like the Elton John–themed Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboys and the original Fireball share the room with the half-remembered but no less enticing Stingray, El Dorado, and Scuba, all immaculately restored to fully operational glory. The air is filled with the honest “chunk!” and “ching!” of real pinball play, with nary a beep or unintelligible synthesized voice to be heard. The scores run in the thousands, not the billions. And the best part? The games are all set for unlimited play! After paying the $10 cover, you can play until your inner 12-year-old achieves nirvana, or at least until your middle-aged wrists scream “Uncle!”
713 Santa Clara, Alameda. (510) 205-9793
BEST BAR TO HOP ABOARD THE PARTY TRAIN
For years the Transfer was known as "that little biker-dyke bar near the Castro no one goes to," and some of us liked it that way. Where else could you throw back a cheap shot with a couple hustlers and a hot butch? When word got out that real estate king Greg Bronstein had bought it, we shuddered. Would he turn it into another bland chichi sissy lounge? Nope. He let manager Shawn Vergara take over and turn it into one of the hottest clubs in recent history. Break dancing, hip-hop, Frisco disco, classic rock ’n’ roll, art exhibits, fashion shows — on any night of the week you'll find some of those here and more, as well as a great mixed crowd and some pretty damn hot bar staff. And while we sometimes miss the seedy dyke atmosphere, there's now actually a place near the Castro to get your groove on, and plenty of old-school regulars still falling off their bar stools to boot.
198 Church, SF. (415) 861-7499
BEST DRAG QUEEN WITH AN ACCORDION
A lunch lady, a drag queen, the 2005 winner of the Main Squeeze award at the San Francisco Accordion Festival — what's not to love? With her flying fingers, voluminous babushka, and giant Dame Edna sunglasses (not to mention quite a padded booty), Kielbasia has keyed into our primal longing for Polish, or possibly Ukrainian, old-world wit and charm, delivered in drag, on cue, anywhere we want. A ubiquitous stage performer, night owl, and even children's party entertainer, Kielbasia wields her wheezer with snazzy aplomb and never stoops to the base vulgarity so common of drag queens these days (although her Martha Stewart and Julia Child musical tributes certainly don't pull any punches). Sprung from the mind of Matthew Worszylo, this astounding creature appears regularly at Martuni's piano bar, and believe us, you'll know her when you see her. "Roll out the barrel" never saw such interpretation.
www.kielbasia.com
Severed arms, gushing entrails, and rivers of blood everyfreakingwhere? Yep, must be another Primitive Screwheads extravaganza. Beloved by local horror fans since its 2003 debut (the groovy Evil Dead: Live), this energetic company lures nontraditional theater crowds with its movie-inspired productions, most recently The Chainsaw Massacres. If you make a date with the Screwheads, it’s best to leave your favorite all-white outfit in the closet — either way, though, prepare to draw stares as you shuffle home looking like a refugee from the set of Dead Alive. But mastering the art of modern Grand Guignol ain't the whole story: These thespians are side-splittingly funny. Their shows are so tech-heavy that improv is par for the course (allowing for spontaneous hilarity in case of a malfunctioning prop — a mischievous axe, say). The future looks gruesomely bright for the Screwheads, who are in the process of becoming a nonprofit and plan to fling gore into their ever-growing audiences for years to come. Spray it, don't say it!
www.primitivescrewheads.com
San Francisco is one of the country’s epicenters for electronic dance music — making it, listening to it, and using it to throw down. That status is driven by factors like our technology boom, rich history of music and counterculture, addiction to PLUR (peace, love, unity, respect), and high concentration of Burning Man acolytes. So we were a natural franchise for the Love Parade, which started in Berlin and was imported to San Francisco in 2004, when music, dancing, and some of the world’s best DJs filled the city streets and clubs in late September. Even City Hall became a big VIP rave at last year’s installment, while Civic Center Plaza was positively saturated with beautiful Betties and Barneys boppin’ to bumpin’ bass and bouncy beats. Aw, yeah. But alas, earlier this year local Love Parade organizers got word that Berlin was reeling its franchises back in. So that killed our Love Parade? Hardly. Look for it to go stronger and bigger than ever on the weekend of Sept. 23 under a new moniker: Love Fest.
www.sflovefest.org
BEST ACADEMY OF CHIRPS AND STUTTERS
Admit it. Ever since you got iTunes and Rhapsody, you've wanted to showcase your eclectic and superior musical tastes on the dance floor. The only thing stopping you from throwing down your collection of beats is comprehending the technical gobbledygook that comes with being a DJ, like the difference between a Technics and a Vestax, a chirp and a stutter scratch, a spindle and a needle. To bring out the latent mixmaster in you, NorCal DJ Music and Production Academy provides classes to bedroom beginners, nightclub headliners, and everyone in between. And while your mother might scoff, "Those who can't, teach," NorCal DJMPA provides instructors with years of experience (and club gigs to boot). Boasting teachers from renowned electronic spinner DJ Amber to proven turntablists VinRoc and Pone, NorCal DJMPA accommodates students' diverse tastes in music. Music production courses are also available, for all you Diddy and ?uestlove imitators out there. Crack those knuckles and loosen those fingers, and you'll be back-spinning that 12-inch like a greased pig in no time.
600 Townsend, Ste. 190W, SF. (415) 255-8789, www.norcaldjmpa.com
With most editions weighing in at 700 to 1,000 pages, the truly ironic part about owning a copy of Ulysses is that chances are you haven't read it. Oh, you've tried — you know that it opens on the morning of a June day in 1904, but let's face it: Ulysses is a big, scary book to tackle. This is one of the reasons that the Bay Area theater company with the most literary cred is Berkeley's Wilde Irish Productions. Company members have not only read the James Joyce classic but also do staged readings of the beast at their annual Bloomsday Celebration. Under executive director Breda Courtney, they’ve also tackled other equally imposing Irish literary giants, with a production of Samuel Beckett's Endgame and a bio-play of the decadent poster child for aesthetic prose, Oscar Wilde. Providing hours of raucous entertainment and phenomenal acting, playwriting, and design, Wilde Irish reminds us that an evening at the theater doesn't have to be a stuffy time.
1910 Francisco, Berk. (510) 841-7287, www.wildeirish.com
BEST PROOF THAT THE DEAD CAN DANCE
BEST PLACE TO PRACTICE PERFECTION
BEST DISPLAY OF HUMAN INTERCONNECTEDNESS
BEST HIP-HOPPER WITH A DICTATOR'S MONIKER
BEST SMORGASBORD OF SLEAZY GLAMOUR
BEST OFF-BROADWAY AFFAIR OFF UNION SQUARE
BEST CREEPY UP-AND-COMING ARTIST
BEST SILVER-GELATIN TIME MACHINE
BEST MECCA FOR THE LIGHT-HEADED
BEST RETURN TO ROCK ’'N' ROLL ROOTS
BEST COLLECTION OF CIGARETTE LIGHTER ALTERNATIVES
BEST SCRATCH FOR YOUR AVANT-GARDE ITCH
BEST WAY TO TURN A COCKTAIL SHAKER INTO A CHARITY MONEYMAKER
BEST PHYSICALLY INTEGRATED TROUPE
BEST BAR TO HOP ABOARD THE PARTY TRAIN
BEST DRAG QUEEN WITH AN ACCORDION
