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Caitlin Donohue

How they're sitting

44TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE: The kids on Haight Street aren't exactly like the stereotype you've been told about

10.19.10 - 3:49 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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caitlin@sfbg.com

I've been hanging out with the Haight Street kids. Over the course of a week or so, I smoked weed, drank malt liquor, witnessed nasty run-ins with police officers — all events that anyone who has walked down the sidewalks of that legendary street would expect. But I also met people who'd give away their last dollar to a friend, people who know a thing or two about community, and people who don't see sidewalks only as thoroughfares to commerce.Read more »

On the cheap listings

10.19.10 - 2:07 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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Events listings are compiled by Caitlin Donohue. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 20

hell strung and crooked Release Party The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway, SF; www.thebeatmuseum.com. 6pm, free. The Beat Museum helps to present a night of intensely creative bards from the world over in anticipation of the release of their new poetry tome. Read more »

Exotic Erotic's 31st round

10.18.10 - 4:00 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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Perhaps you've seen them around town. The neon pink fliers announcing that SF's most gloriously trashy tradition, the Exotic Erotic Ball and Expo, beckons saucily to you this weekend (Fri/22 and Sat/23). Were you curious about the providence of the posters' graphic design, this just in from founder-behatted cartoon character Perry Mann: “we're very aware that it's breast cancer month.”

Well that would explain all the boob examiners! 2010 marks Mann's 31st year of organized orgy, which nowadays draws in around 10,000 gawkers and pervs a year for onstage sex shows by world famous porn performers, elaborate fetish costuming, ribald entertainment (“we've got... orgasmic bingo? I don't know what that is,” Mann admits to me on the phone), and surprisingly serious musical guests. Sort of. This year is the Family Stone, minus Sly. “We reached out to Sly,” Mann tells me. “If he can get off his crack pipe, he'll show.” Read more »

Markus James' West African happiness surplus

10.15.10 - 4:11 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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In an age of endless crossover between most conceivable forms of music, it's but small surprise that a Caucasian man from Virginia is making blues with West African witch doctors. What rarely gets discussed in these cross-ocean collaborations is the social aspect of the fusion. What did the artists eat for lunch the day they recorded that track? In what language was the “and-a-one” that started off the first take? 

We had the opportunity to chat over the phone with Bay Area artist Markus James, who has parlayed his time with Malian string musicians into elemental blues tracks. You can hear them on both his new album, Snakeskin Violin, and at his live show (at the Ashkenaz, Fri/22) with The Wassonrai, who are West African musicians that rep for jam band track longevity – strains of which James says is indigenous everywhere from Mali to Jackson, Mississippi -- into their already formidable blend of blues past and present. James said (and we're paraphrasing here) that the secret to fusion collaborations all lies in your location-resonation, but that's just his perspective. Read more »

Beating chest for APE

10.14.10 - 5:22 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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I used to live in a town where the alternative-alternative (holler!) weekly had a comics page. Paging to the back of said volume each seven days I'd look for Tony Millionaire's joint, Maakies. Millionaire's rounding out a phalanx of guest speakers at this weekend's APE (Sat/16 and Sun/17), so I'm thinking back to the days when his preciously drawn little derelicts marked my Wednesdays.

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Go see Kathy Griffin, the parking's better

10.13.10 - 2:37 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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Is Kathy Griffin as irritating as oil stains on a pelican's plumage or does she just play it as such on TV? After speaking with the comedian in anticipation of her live show this weekend at the Zellerbach Auditorium (Sat/17), this much is clear: Griffin is certainly committed to her character.

One would expect no less of a woman who has ridden a red-headed whorl of derision-abrasion from a Suddenly Susan sidekick gig to a six-season and counting reality TV show (My Life on the D-List) – not to mention sold out gigs at Madison Square Garden and a memoir entitled Official Book Club Selection that people appear to be liking. Sure, Stephen Baldwin and Dr. Phil have independently sought to strangle her, but they did so in front of her audience. She's like, the most popular unpopular girl ever, Rodney Dangerfield had he dropped the hangdog and set up a RSS feed straight to TMZ. Read on for our scuffle over philanthropy and sailor-style swearing.

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Hot sexy events October 13-19

10.13.10 - 2:33 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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Support your local sex workers! We are lucky to live in a city where those salacious somebodies that will take their kits off in the name of our pleasure and payment don't have to lay down and take it when the man gets all censorious and grabby – lucky to live in a city where St. James' Infirmary exists, that is. The Lusty Ladies agree, and on Sat/16 they're holding their annual Playday for St. J's – 16 hours of girl-on-girl-on-call for justice. Read more »

Whiskeyfest whispers

10.11.10 - 3:42 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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What words could be more beautiful to hear upon entrance into the skyscraper-y, shiny den of downtown's Marriot Marquis? From the mouth of a woman in a blazer and matching knee-length skirt: “It smells like a frat house on a Saturday morning!” Ah, last Friday's Whiskeyfest, you came to conquer my liver, but you left after conquering my heart.

To the tune of 250 whiskies, no less! Once ensconced in the hotel's basement ballroom and properly attired with our souvenir tote and tasting glass, naught could be seen but opportunities to drink myself into an unproductive Saturday of cowering from the Blue Angels. Row upon row of the finest whiskies – the even finer ones available only for the special VIP tasting hour, whose $150 price tag may have seemed a little step were one not aware of the general admission's $110 bar tab. Read more »

Open Studios spotlight: Calixto Robles

10.07.10 - 3:38 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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Because Open Studios is about more than just the free wine and occasional sushi board score. Really! The annual organized voyeurism of creative space in the city will showcase artists' studios in different neighborhoods each weekend this month. In gleeful anticipation, we visited screen-printer and long time Mission visual artist Calixto Robles, who is helping to throw open the doors to his Life Art Studios (151 Potrero, SF) this weekend. Read more »

Hot sexy events Oct 6-12

10.06.10 - 4:16 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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It's about that time, cats and kittens. Time to start fantasizing -- Halloween is just around the corner. And though everyone and their mother is going to be Stephen Colbert's Muslim vampire this year, many will seize the autumnal juncture as an opportunity to whore it up and out – in a good way! 

After all, who doesn't love the sexy nurses, kitties, police officers, and Snookies that stalk the city bars each year on the 31st? Look, the point is that on this day of days society indulges those that follow their dreams. May as well make it a wet dream, no? Sexy Muslim vampire it is! Oh, and here are some sexy events that'll wet your whistle this week, with an emphasis on finding that alluring inner equilibrium. Read more »