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SCENE: NonStop Bhangra brings the dance

03.24.10 - 5:06 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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From Scene: The Guardian Guide to Bay Area Nightlife and Glamour -- on stands now in the Guardian

You've always been the, shall we say, expressive one in your group. Eye-fluttering comes naturally to you. Your hands have been known to fly to your face at the slightest appearance of everyday anguish. You enjoy flouncing. So go east, young thang — straight to dramatic Bollywood.

Can't quite swing the flight to Mumbai? You're in luck, because since 2004, Vicki Virk and Suman Raj of the dholrhythms dance troupe, along with DJ Jimmy Love and others, have been holding monthly NonStop Bhangra club nights (www.nonstopbhangra.com) that turn the Rickshaw Stop into handclapping, bangle-clanging, whirling celebrations of bhangra, the dance music that drives Indian cinema. They spend the night's first hour schooling audiences to bhangra basics, leaving each diva free to bob and spin for the rest of the night to the tunes of an ever more impressive lineup of dub, hip-hop, and electronica DJs and musicians. We caught up with Virk to chat about how she's made this unconventional club night a multicultural institution in the Bay for the past six years.

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SCENE: Jazz Mafia Keeps it in the family

03.24.10 - 4:53 pm |
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Written by Lilan Kane. From Scene: The Guardian Guide to Bay Area Nightlife and Glamour -- on stands now in the Guardian

Jazz in its most fashionable and handsome form found itself around a table at Coda recently. I had the pleasure of meeting with dapper Jazz Mafia members Adam Theis, Joe Bagale, and Dublin to gain some insight into their music and experiences as members of one of the Bay's most youthful jazz ensembles.

The Mafia (www.jazzmafia.com), as one might expect, is a collective that incorporates several smaller groups containing dozens of members into a large and tuneful family. The first of these groups, Realistic Orchestra, was established about 10 years ago when various jazz forces of the Bay Area started to intertwine and jam together. (Other branches of the family include Brass Mafia, Spaceheater, and the Shotgun Wedding Quintet.)

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Street Threads: Look of the Day

03.24.10 - 4:12 pm | Ariel Soto-Suver |
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Today's Look: Jay, Van Ness and Broadway

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Can Newsom save SF parties?

03.24.10 - 2:20 pm | Steven T. Jones |
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Why won’t Mayor Gavin Newsom save San Francisco’s nightlife and culture? That question was raised toward the end of this week’s cover story on party-crashing cops, but it’s worth highlighting here because Newsom seem uniquely suited to the task of mediating this damaging dispute.Read more »

See you at the bar

BRUCE ROEHRS, 1950-2010 -- a life of maximum rock 'n' roll

03.24.10 - 1:11 pm | sfbg |
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By Allan McNaughton

This week, San Francisco and the world said goodbye to a good friend, a true gentleman, and a diehard rock and roll fan. Bruce Roehrs, columnist and reviewer for Maximumrocknroll magazine and a staple on the local punk rock scene, passed away peacefully at his home. The exact time and circumstances of his death have yet to be determined.Read more »

Inspirationstitute

03.24.10 - 1:04 pm | Johnny Ray Huston |
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I don't do regrets, but I do wish that I'd arrived in San Francisco early enough to catch more than the hot tail end of the Popstitute years. (A show of Popstitute-related archival objets d'art is on display at Goteblud starting Sat27.) In another way, though, the Popstitute era continues, perhaps more forcefully, now. Read more »

When do we get to vote on PG&E’s latest rate hike?

03.24.10 - 12:51 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
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The Chronicle’s David Baker reported today that Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has proposed a new fee structure that would raise the average residential customer bill by $10.73 more each month, bringing it to a total of $88.13.

This new rate-hike proposal comes as the utility prepares to spend $35 million on Proposition 16, a ballot initiative that would essentially lock in its monopoly against competition by requiring a two-thirds vote before local governments could set up alternative power providers. John Geesman, former executive director of the California Energy Commission, called PG&E’s current rates “excessive” when he blasted Prop 16 before a joint hearing of the California Legislature. Geesman commented that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) doesn’t set rates “at a level calculated to provide a $35 million slush fund for sole-sponsored political adventurism.” Read more »

alt.sex.column: Oh, grow up!

03.24.10 - 12:19 pm | Andrea Nemerson |
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Dear Andrea:

My really sweet, nice new boyfriend is into S–M and I'm not sure I even understand the attraction. I can get behind the sensation aspect but I have some moral and feminist objections. He insists it's just a way to play, but it doesn't sound like play to me. From what I read, people seem to take it pretty seriously. Plus calling it play ("pain play" "play-dates," "play partners") doesn't really convince me that it's all in good fun. You're going to think this is ridiculous, but honestly all the talk about "play" sounds immature to me. We are 30 and 33 years old! Do we really need to spend our free time "playing"? Convince me.

Love,

All Play And No Work ...

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What is the plural of cyclops, anyway? "God of War III," reviewed

03.24.10 - 11:50 am | sfbg |
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By Peter Galvin

God of War III

(Santa Monica Studio, Sony Computer Entertainment)

PS3

A melting pot of ancient Greek myths and characters, the God of War series embodies the term "Big Game." When the first title made its debut on the PS2 in 2005, people were blown away by the scope of the environments and the brutality of its anti-hero Kratos. A pawn in one of those tragic mind-games that Greek gods were so well-known for, Kratos was a Spartan warrior who set out to exact vengeance against the gods that betrayed him, battling his way through hell itself more than once. In this, the third and supposedly final game in the franchise, action and spectacle are amplified to their limits as Kratos ascends Mount Olympus to murder Zeus himself.

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Director Atom Egoyan talks remakes, marriage, and "Chloe"

03.24.10 - 11:08 am | Mara Math |
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Canadian director Atom Egoyan (1994's Exotica, 1997's The Sweet Hereafter) was recently in town to discuss Chloe, his latest film, which producer Ivan Reitman commissioned him to direct. Based on, but markedly different from, the 2003 French film Nathalie, Chloe follows the unexpected course of events triggered when the middle-aged Catherine (Julianne Moore), suspecting her husband David (Liam Neeson) of having an affair, hires luxe call-girl Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to tempt him.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Do you know what attracted Ivan Reitman to this project?

Atom Egoyan: My only clue, really, is that in looking at his filmography, he made a film [in 1993] called Dave, which I enjoyed because it really is also a study of a marriage, a marriage that had gone completely cold. Sigourney Weaver plays the wife of a president, played by Kevin Kline, and they can’t stand each other. He dies, and a ringer is brought in, also played by Kevin Kline. All they have to do is make public appearances, because this couple doesn’t talk to each other in private at all. And she finds herself strangely falling in back love with her husband, and of course it isn’t her husband, it’s a surrogate. I think I understand why the person who made that film would be attracted to Chloe, because it’s dealing with similar themes.

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March me, baby

03.24.10 - 10:55 am | Caitlin Donohue |
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March Fourth Marching Band is coming to town (Fri/26, Cellspace). Throw up your batons! Toss about that pocket-stored confetti! Let the high steppin’, flair totin’ cyclone of happiness begin!

Perhaps I should explain.Read more »

Hank Plante's exit interview

03.24.10 - 8:45 am | Steven T. Jones |
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Hank Plante ends a three-decade run as a political journalist with tonight’s (March 24) broadcast of the CBS 5 Eyewitness News, where he has worked since 1986 after starting his career with newspapers in Washington DC. So we took the occasion to talk politics with him, learning that his loyalties lie downtown.Read more »

John Ross: The damaged spine of America

03.23.10 - 7:09 pm | John Ross |
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I am on a low-rent book tour with my new cult classic El Monstruo - Dread & Redemption In Mexico City.  For the next three months, I will stumble across this land from sea to stinking sea probing the underbelly of Obama's America.  The findings will be posted on these pages.


LAS CRUCES N.M. -- The snow was already dusting the Organ Mountains fringing this high desert town, promising a hard winter further up the spine of Obama's America. I ride the Mexican bus (officially doing business as the El Paso-L.A, Limousine Express) when I ply the back roads of the southwest. Greyhound, with its stern rules and regulations and surly drivers who threaten their cargos with summary expulsion for minor infractions, doesn't much inspire me these days.  

 

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It lives again -- Creature Features rises from the grave

03.23.10 - 3:24 pm | Sean McCourt |
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Seemingly rising from the grave like so many of the monsters and ghouls that it showcased over a 14-year run on local television, the beloved Bay Area show Creature Features is being resurrected once again to satiate fans’ undying thirst for the creepy, kooky and campy.

On Thursday night, John Stanley (who took over hosting the program from the late Bob Wilkins in 1979) will be on hand at the Balboa Theater for a recreation of what an original “Creature Features” episode would have been like circa the early 1980s, including a full feature film, interview segments, mini-movie, and even the vintage commercials that ran during the breaks. Read more »

The pool next door

03.23.10 - 2:57 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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“Oh yeah, the best part of the job is the swim lessons,” says Al Hardy, senior swim instructor at the newly reopened Hamilton Recreation Center. We were standing at the corner of his new pool, where the San Francisco native worked for 20 years before renovations closed down the lanes two years ago. The center opened back up for business on March 6th. During my visit within weeks of its rebirth it was filled with community members using every aspect of its varied fitness facilities. Clearly, I’m not the only one that’s stoked my neighborhood has a swimming pool once again.Read more »