› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER "Fuck Lars Ulrich — he can play drums on my balls with his teeth!" Them's fighting words from the beefy bruiser in a tinsel page-boy wig, perhaps provoked only by four wannabe skids' burning need to cover Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" at last week's first but — fortunately for your inner and outer sketched-out Priest hooligan with a nonironic mullet, prematurely weather-beaten mien, and herbally truncated short-term memory — not last "Hesher" night at the Parkside, where it's now semioffi Read more »

FILM Angelina Jolie in blackface and a decent film? Both seem remarkable when one considers the cinematic caca generated by the Tomb Raider franchise star since her Oscar win for Girl, Interrupted (1999).

Decidedly weightier and more ambitious than the screwball Mr. and Mrs. Read more »

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Once upon a strange, overly prepared, possibly paranoid post-9/11-related time not so long ago, I'd bring my lunch to shows at Shoreline Amphitheatre, then–Concord Pavilion, and all those other mammoth Sleep Train–sponsored yet intrinsically antisnooze behemoths. I'd pack a heaving Dagwood of cold cuts and assorted cheeses and energy bars into a backpack for random spates of balls-out rockin' in burbs and office parks. What was I thinking? Read more »

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Where have all the outlaws gone? Now that Paris Hilton seems like the highest-profile sorta-one-hit wonder to run afoul of the law, it's easy to believe that pop's rep for rebellion is seriously in question. (And with Warner Bros. jettisoning the overexposed jet-setter, who knows if she should even make the tally?) Yet just how disturbing or subversive is it to glom on to corporate punks like Good Charlotte or hitch your fortunes to soaking-in-it onetime gangstas like Snoop "Soul Gravy Train" Dogg? Read more »

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER As the Summer of Love turns 40 with a whiff of the haven't-we-been-here-before birthday blues and a soupçon of marketing bluster — if you can't trust anyone over 30, as one boomer so succinctly put it, well, doesn't 40 seem beyond the pale? Look out, big five-oh! — one wonders less about where all the good times went than how we can look ourselves in the eye while we try to resurrect a past, now conveniently viewable through the rosy-hued granny glasses of nostalgia, after writing off the real thing. Read more »

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER I may have gotten straight Cs in critics' college, but I can't tell you what works for you. You are the only one who knows what makes you put down the channel changer, sends thrills down your spine, sets your disco ball spinning, and brings that mischievous sparkle to your eye. Or do you?

When it comes to e-mail subject line come-ons, one man's "Ciali$ CHEEEP" is another woman's "Ever wanted a bigger penis, Kimberly?" and one stud puppy's "Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Cum to my cam! Read more »

ART BOOK Any ole body can start a LiveJournal or blog these days with the flick of a mousing finger and a peck on a keyboard. But how many people can undertake a project such as the one documented in The 1000 Journals Project (Chronicle Books, $22.95)? Read more »

kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Afraid to leave home? Worried about breaking away from the pack? Terrified of alarming the animals? Don't be baaah'd.

Now that the few days of spring heat have descended on the Bay, baking our brains and filling our tenderized minds with thoughts of possibility, freedom, and escape, we begin to contemplate new adventures, new paths, a new life without you.

Yes, you. Read more »

SONIC REDUCER "I can't believe you slept through the police helicopter above the tent at 3 a.m. and the megaphone going, 'Disperse immediately or you'll all be arrested,'" tentmate Fluffy marveled the day after another ear-busting night of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival's unofficial after-party scene in the campgrounds. It was only 8 a.m., though the sun was already beating down relentlessly like our heedless neighborhood drum circle.Read more »

Van Halen may have made it into the music record books for Most Ridiculous Tour Rider for their demand for M&Ms picked free of the turdlike brown numbers. But musician-director Vincent Gallo might make the rock hitmakers jump with his own Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival must-have. "I'm not going to show you his rider," festival founder Jeff Ray says wryly. "It's a little crazy."

"Oh, c'mon," I say, perched on a couch in the red and yellow office in Ray's Mission flat. Read more »