San Francisco is My Home

24
Mar

Photo show at the Legion of Honor

Author: kris, Category: Celebrities, Events, Museums

If you need more eye candy in your life, then…you probably don’t live in the Castro. Anyway, the solution for this is a trip to the Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990–2005 exhibit at the Legion of Honor. This show is padded with images of all the loveliest celebrities in famously sexed-up poses; the perfect thing to spice up a dreary work week. Check it out any time between now and May 25.

24
Mar

Rocket Dog fundraiser coming up

Author: kris, Category: Charity, Events, Groups

Local non-profit org Rocket Dog Rescue is holding a fundraiser party on April 5. Rocket Dog’s founder is the woman who lost her home on Christmas Eve, and the organization can really use your support at this tough time.

The fundraiser is happening at Terra Mia on April 5. Expect fine foods, drinks, and a silent auction. Every penny raised will go towards rescuing a dog who is going to be euthanized at a shelter. Visit the website for details.

19
Mar

311

Author: kris, Category: Bars and Clubs, Music, Transportation

I went to Bottom of the Hill to see a friend’s band play last night. (The band is Truxton, and while I am of course a biased reviewer, I recommend checking them out. The rock is fierce, the performance energetic, and the music all harmonious and stuff.)

Afterwards, feeling independent and not yet aware how severely undressed I was for the external temperature, I turned down a ride home and elected to take the bus.

Twenty minutes later, concerned for my near-frostbitten fingers, I stood anxiously in the middle of the empty street, searching the horizon with yearning, runny eyes for a bus that still had not appeared. The nice thing was I was able to get some chat time in with the kind folks at 311.

In case you do not know, 311 is the number you call when you are stranded at a freezing bus stop in the middle of the evening and your bus isn’t coming. You tell them where you are and what line you’re waiting for and which direction you’re going (they can help you with the inbound/outbound thing if you’re not sure) and they can tell you where your bus is using advanced satellite technology, or possibly magic.

The i.m. Gavin Newsom, let me tell you, LOVES this service. I’ve heard him randomly mention it at more than one press conference. (And a digression: man, it has been WAY too long since I’ve been to one of his press conferences. No wonder he’s getting married, without me to gaze at him adoringly from the third row on a bi-weekly basis.)  He loves it with good reason. I don’t know why, but it’s a lot easier to wait that extra twenty minutes if you can get regular updates on where the hell your bus is.

So that is the message of today’s free-form Wednesday. 311: use the number. (But avoid the band.)

17
Mar

Weekend preview

Author: kris, Category: Events, Food, Movies, Weekend preview

Friday, March 21

This is the last weekend of the Asian American Film Festival. Now is the time to catch the last showing of all those shows you were too lazy to go see during the week. There are just a few films playing on Friday, but one of them is The Unseeable, a ghost story from Thailand that I am definitely hauling myself out to Berkeley to see. And if I can do it, why can’t you?

Saturday, March 22

I am pretty excited about this, even though I cannot go: the Falkirk Cultural Center in downtown San Rafael is hosting an Alice in Wonderland Spring Faire. Actors from a local theatre troupe will dress as characters from the books, lead a parade and perform scenes from the musical Alice. There’s also the usual host of musicians, magicians, clowns and puppets, along with fun kid activities like contests and Mad Hatter hat making. It’s $5 per person and you can bring your own picnic lunch if you want to.

Sunday, March 23

Sunday is Easter, and even if you don’t believe in the Bunny or that Son of God business, it can still be a fun holiday. Why? Because unlike, say, Thanksgiving, the central meal of Easter is brunch, which to my mind is the best of all possible meals. Check out a long list of great Bay Area brunch spots here.

12
Mar

Show tonight

Author: kris, Category: Music

If you’re looking for something to do tonight, We Be The Echo is playing at Bottom of the Hill again. Remember: cave train, poor posture, great music. It’s all happening.

Click here for show info, and click here if you can’t remember what the heck I’m talking about.

10
Mar

Monday roundup

Author: kris, Category: Events, Holiday, Movies, Weekend preview

What ho, fellows. Time for our Monday weekend round-up. I thought I would actually write it on a Monday this week as a special treat, but don’t get used to it or anything.

Friday, March 14

The San Francisco Ballet is performing a tribute to Jerome Robinson (think West Side Story and you’ll have the man in mind). If normal ballet simply isn’t gay enough for you — I know it’s not gay enough for me — then you might enjoy this head-on collision of ballet and musical theater. I myself will be attending this performance, so if you’d care to say hello you can just watch for the girl making anxious faces every time someone leaps in the air. I am a worrier, and constantly on watch for someone to break an ankle at these little athletic trials.

Saturday, March 15

If you like St. Patrick’s Day but don’t like watching frat boys vomit green onto public sidewalks, eschew the drunken day-of celebrations and attend the family-friendly parade on Saturday instead. San Francisco takes its Irish community seriously (alas, we don’t seem to feel the same way about our Welsh), and the parade is an extravaganza of dancers, school bands, floats, bagpipes and Wolfhounds.

Sunday, March 16

The Asian American Film Festival will run from March 13 through March 23. The schedule for any given day is pretty dizzying, packed with stuff to see at several theaters all over town. Your options are extensive, but I like your chances with “I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK.” Check out the synopsis:

“From acclaimed director Park Chan-wook comes I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK, a playful, macabre tale of an existentially insecure cyborg and a kleptomaniac terrified of disappearing into a dot.

“Lim Soo-jung (also starring in Happiness) is Young-goon, a troubled girl who, after a traumatic separation from her grandmother, believes herself to be a cyborg. Committed to a mental institution, Young-goon forgoes food, convinced she must recharge through electrical devices. Ultimately, Young-goon is determined to gain enough strength to reunite with her grandmother—and mercilessly kill anyone who stands in her way. Enter Il-soon, played by pop icon Rain, a sensitive but unstable kleptomaniac with a penchant for stealing people’s characteristics. Through their budding romance, the two keep each other from literally and metaphorically vanishing into nothing.”

Um, yes please.

29
Feb

The Red Vic

Author: kris, Category: Haight, Music

I always knew the Red Vic Movie House was cool, but I did not know it was California’s only worker owned and operated movie theater. (As soon as we learn about Cesar Chavez, every Californian falls in love with the phrase “worker owned and operated.” Unions! Power to the laborers! This is an important rite of passage for young Californians, and gives our hippie parents something to feel superior about because their idealism was totally more idealistic than our idealism.)

Anyway, the Vic (as I call it, though I’m pretty sure no one else does) has the three items vital to being rated “awesome”: an esoteric, independent schedule of programming; couches from which you may view the e. i. s. of p.; and a snack bar that serves way more than your average Goobers. I highly recommend checking it out. Why not tonight? They’re showing that Bob Dylan movie.

26
Feb

Last Comic Standing

Author: kris, Category: Comedy, Events

I found another thing you can do on Friday night: go be funny. NBC’s Last Comic Standing is hosting their San Francisco audition on Friday, February 29, at Cobb’s Comedy Club.  Do you think you have what it takes to make the judges laugh?

…Okay, I’ve never actually seen Last Comic Standing, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s all about.

You can make your cousin Stewart laugh…you can make French people laugh…but can you make French Stewart laugh? Well, can you?

25
Feb

Monday roundup

Author: kris, Category: Bars and Clubs, Events, Music, Weekend preview

It’s your weekend roundup, presented on a Monday for once.

Friday, February 29

Celebrate the most unusual day in February with a concert by a truly unusual band. The Magnetic Fields are playing at the Herbst Theatre for Noisepop, though at this point you’ll have to skulk around Craigslist to get a ticket. If paying double the price for a scalped admission doesn’t appeal, you could always embrace the true spirit of Noisepop by picking the venue closest to your house and seeing whoever’s on offer. You will almost certainly not be disappointed. Noisepop is the premiere event in town this weekend, so check the schedule for all the days and don’t miss out.

Saturday, March 1

If Noisepop is just too hep for you, maybe you want to do something much, much lamer. In that case, I recommend hosting a rousing celebration of St. David’s Day, the day sacred to the patron saint of Wales. A ten minute Google search proved that there isn’t a large, thriving community of Welsh immigrants in the Bay Area, but you can at least knock a few celebratory pints back at the Prince of Wales Pub in San Mateo. Or, again, you could check out Noisepop.

Sunday, March 2

Feeling nostalgic for those drama days of high school? Buy a ticket for the Bay One Acts, running February 21 through March 16 and hosted by the enjoyably named Three Wise Monkeys Theatre Company. (Doesn’t anyone spell it “theater” around here? Seriously.) I’ve never been to anything put on by this company, so I’m not necessarily endorsing it, but if it sucks, hey, it was only one act long.

Remember: Noisepop. It’s a good thing.

21
Feb

Circus People

Author: kris, Category: Events

If you like circuses, but in your heart you wish they were a little cooler — and you can’t afford tickets to Cirque du Soleil — you might check out the Bohemian Carnival. This used to be a monthly event at the DNA Lounge. Though it no longer seems to be housed there, it looks like it’s still running, complete with its cadre of bound-to-astound-you contortionists, fire breathers and so on and so on. I suggest you sign up with the mailing list to keep abreast of upcoming shows.

This lovely image comes from here.