Gearing up for the end times with Hoodslam

Well another Armageddon scare has come and gone and we’re all still here, as is my dirty laundry which I was letting pile up on the off chance that I wouldn’t need it again. Not that clean clothes were necessary to attend the Judgment Day edition of Oakland-based, amateur-wrestling-and-sideshow-freak extravaganza, Hoodslam. Read more »

Austin invades SF with Christeene Vale, Wammo, and Guy Forsyth

There’s glamour. Then there’s Glamour. And then there’s Glamour’s myriad permutations, like Drag Glamour. And Drug Glamour. And Diva Glamour. Glamour makes respectable what might otherwise be considered merely ostentatious, excessive, or gauche. Elusive but instantly recognizable, there’s no doubt that glamour can enthrall. But frankly, sometimes it bores. 

There’s nothing boring about Christeene Vale.  Read more »

The Thrillpeddlers take on Poe, plague, and poop

In Edgar Allan Poe’s grisly tale The Masque of the Red Death, a group of wealthy nobles hole up in a fortified abbey to avoid the ravages of a mysterious ailment sweeping the countryside, which causes its victims to sweat blood and keel over dead in the streets. Read more »

Entering The Room

Harley-Davidson. Twinkies. Michael Jackson. Some things are so uniquely American they practically ooze stars and stripes, no matter how far across the borders they stray.

Another all-American tradition – right up there with Miller-in-a-can and Wheel of Fortune – has got to be Bad Movie Night: the deliberate screening of movies so awful they make the viewer scream tears of laughter, or sit in horrified silence, too traumatized by dubious production values or script incoherence to muster the strength to tear their eyes away. Read more »

Electric Party Songs and The Darker Side of Broadway

However you feel (or don’t) about the Beat Generation, you have to give Allen Ginsberg credit for his ability to transcend the limitations of that motley crew, always pushing forward and outward in his beatific search for the sublime. Perhaps no other modern poet has better exemplified the endless fluctuations of the underground, and how to eternally roll along with them. Our own Holy Fool: queer Buddhist Jew, vagabond truth-seeker, and the King of May. In all the ways that count, Allen Ginsberg was, and will always be, America. Read more »

David Thomas and Joanna Haigood explore the shadows of the American DreamRead more »

Joining the saltwater chorus at the monthly Chantey Sing at Fisherman's Wharf

Landlubbers arise. San Franciscans of the not long-distant past were a sea-faring folk, and you don’t have to scratch the surface very far to dig up old salt. Sailboats, houseboats, fishing boats, and ferries all still have their place in the bay, churning in the wake of container ships and visiting cruise lines, and the waterfront pubs are still prime locations to be regaled by gusty tall (ship) tales by grizzled old-school longshoremen and maritime amateurs alike.

One of the most unexpected legacies of our boating heritage is the monthly Chantey Sing aboard The Balclutha, a historic square rig docked at the end of the Hyde Street Pier. Six months shy of its 30-year anniversary, the Chantey Sing is one of those wonderfully hidden-in-plain-view pockets of locals-only camaraderie that you could spend years of urban assimilation hoping to stumble upon. Read more »

St. Stupid and Karen Finely ride again

For anyone who could count that high, Friday’s St. Stupid’s Day parade marked its 33rd anniversary -- a year that was also auspicious, it should be noted, for that famous first martyr, Jesus Christ Superstar. Will St. Stupid, revered patron of the First Church of the Last Laugh, succumb to a similar fate as JC? 

Methinks not. The Romans have yet to suss out the threat St. Stupid’s low-maintenance doctrine poses to their empire building, and the Stupids are not about to let them in on that little secret. After all, on the surface it seems pretty benign, a bit of only-in-San-Francisco color for the die-hards to cherish and the tourists to gawk at. But beneath the greasepaint, dirty balloon animals, and silly sloganeering (“Dum is Sexy,” “I Can’t Afford an Actual Sign,” “Serfs Up!”), there’s still a feverish drop of pure dada shivering in the mix. Read more »

Adventures in Naked Empire's bouffonery

An evening spent in the presence of the Naked Empire Bouffon Company is always an unsettling experience. It can be difficult sometimes to assess who is actually performing for whom, as bouffons are wickedly adept at reading individuals and pulling them however briefly into the spotlight not as props, but as human beings with something to hide. Read more »

Bad hair days gone wild at Rock of Ages
 
That distance makes the heart grow fonder does go a long way in explaining the recent resurgence of hair metal. Somehow despite all better judgment, a spangled veil of wistful nostalgia has fluttered over that particular genre of music you probably loathed when you had to listen to it blaring non-stop from every corporate rock station in the nation [or while guys in eyeliner and leopard tights were beating you up in high school for being a flannel-wearing, Smiths-loving faggot -ED.].

But nowadays stone-washed denim is the new sepia-tone, and don’t think the canny producers of the touring, glam-rock “jukebox musical” Rock of Ages don’t know it. Any show where scantily-clad beauties hand out custom-made lighters at the door (ok, little flashlights) to hold up at the appropriate moments, that is to say every five minutes, is staged quite emphatically to push your most embarrassingly sentimental buttons. But it’s such an eagerly goofy emphasis that you can’t really resent the blatant manipulation. You’ll probably even wind up singing along.

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