Paula West and Bruce Vilanch share an eclectic bill with cast members from American Idiot

Cast members from the touring company of American Idiot will break character and break out some distinctly unpunk performances this Monday night, July 2.  Members of the stellar troupe are using their night off to volunteer on behalf of the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation (REAF) in the latest One Night Only! fundraiser at the Marine’s Memorial Theater.

Among the Green team’s fellow footllghters in this crazy quilt of a benefit will be the extraordinary interpretive jazz singer Paula West—who has headlined the late lamented Oak Room at the Algonquin in Manhattan as well as our own Rrazz Room—and  Muppetoid writer/comedian Bruce Vilanch, who’s scripted quips for everyone from Bette Midler to Florence Henderson.

Expect an eclectic mix of music and laughs from this generous crew in a show that is not only a benefit but a bargain—tickets are as little as $25.

From  evidence we’ve dug up online, members of this American Idiot cast like to bust out a little country when they’re freed from their show’s rock and roll score. Video after the jump Read more…

Pondering pennywise pastry at Sheng Kee

You know those pre-packaged, triangular cut tuna sandwiches they sell at Starbucks for $5 bucks or so? Well you can get pretty much thesame thing for $1.85 at either of the two Sheng Kee Bakery Cafes on Irving Street in the Inner Sunset, both just a couple blocks from some prime picnic areas in Golden Gate Park.

And I say  pretty much the same thing because the Starbuck-style sammies here are actually better. The dense white bread is baked fresh in-house every day, as are dozens of other baked goods, many of which will give you second thoughts about bothering with something so prosaic as a tuna sandwich, even at a bargain price.

For under two bucks a pop, you should definitely branch out and try some of Sheng Kee’s fun, fusion items, which combine elements of Chinese dim sum, American fast food, and French pastry technique: the bacon and green onion bun, tomato pastry, Hawaiian ham-cheese-and-pineapple bun, and curry beef donut are savory faves.

The cafes are clean and bright with plenty of mysteriously underutilized seating (Most customers take their goodies to go). In a city where food prices are often sky high, this is a go-to lunch oasis.

Author Rob Rosen (left) and husband in their beloved Castro.

Local author Rob Rosen is a travel fanatic, and it comes through in his cheeky gay novels including the Sin City romp Divas Las Vegas, the Hawaiian hijinks of Hot Lava, and his latest, Queerwolf, an unlikely blend of road trip, erotica, and horror story. Between  flights of imagination, Rosen—a native New Yorker who’s also lived in Atlanta— makes his home with his husband (a travel agent!) in the Noe Valley neighborhood, or as Rosen dubs it “Stroller Central.” We asked him where he points visitors in San Francisco…

The Castro, which is a gay cultural institution. There my hubby and I can see just about every breed of fabulous queer: leather daddies, lesbians, twinks, muscle queens, drag queens, bears, straight guys clutching their girlfriend’s hands, every race, every size, every age, coming from all over the world to catch a glimpse of how awesome it is to be gay in San Francisco. Fine, it’s a gay ghetto, but it’s our gay ghetto.

Corona Heights, just above The Castro and below Twin Peaks. It’s a nice hike up and virtually no tourists know how to get there or even that it’s there to begin with, and yet the view is nearly 360 and spectacular.

Valencia Street, which is a couple of miles of nothing but shops and restaurants and bars, all with a decidedly funky and young vibe. It’s also affordable, compared to the rest of the city, and teaming with people, mostly cool and hip and local.

Nothing beats Velvet Cantina in The Mission. Awesome margaritas in a quirky setting, with the friendliest waiters (all men and all nice-looking) in the city. The bar fills up with locals and the music is fun and fast and just loud enough that you won’t go deaf. And the chips and salsa are stellar.

Farallon is our favorite fine dining restaurant. It’s downtown and easy to get to, the menu is ever-changing, the wait staff is exceptional, and the decor/atmosphere is both elegant and upbeat. We’ve never had anything but a great time and are always treated well. And save room for dessert because it’s exceptional!

My other half and I love Cafe Ethiopia on Valencia Street. It’s family run, authentic Ethiopian, super cheap, and always delicious.

Well, the irony in this: San Francisco really is the most beautiful city in America, as any guidebook will tell you. So go ahead and do everything in the friggin’ guidebook!

A trumpeting bull elephant seal (Photo: Frank Balthis, California State Parks)

It’s that time of year when the B-52s’ “Love Shack” makes its annual comeback, delighting some and annoying many at barbecues throughout the Bay Area. While I’m certainly in the latter camp , I’ve also been having a much more positive, free-associative reaction to the tune this season.

Whenever I hear croaky vocalist Fred Schneider bellow “I got me a car, and its as big as a whale” my mind flashes on a visit I paid to Año Nuevo State Park—about 90 minutes south of the city, in San Mateo County—and I want to go back.

While gray whales can occasionally be spotted off the coast of this windswept peninsula during the spring, its the extraordinary elephant seals—many even bigger than a car—that you’re virtually guaranteed to spot lounging on the beach all year round. These are gigantic mofos, with males weighing up to 2.5 tons and measuring up to 16 feet long. During breeding season, from late December through March, 2000 or so of these behemoths crash the beach, and you can only hike the grounds on a ranger-guided tour.

In the summer months, though, when the ellies return to molt in huge raggedy patches, visitors can walk amongst them unchaperoned. Just pick up a permit at the park’s entrance and after hiking a few easy miles over undulating scrub and sand, you’ll find yourself in the land of the giants. The elephant seals are remarkably unthreatened by strolling bipeds. But bipeds like myself feel humbled in their presence, marveling at their cyclical journeys to and from the northern California shore.

We also think the sound of the seals is pretty much on par with the B-52s.

Let’s admit it. For many long-out LGBT grown ups, Pride Weekend presents a conundrum. Over the decades, we’ve spent hours of curbside time not only cheering on the Dykes on Bikes, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and a handful of fabulous floats, but also yawning our way through visually lackluster and seemingly endless contingents of Gay Parakeet Afficionados, Republican Lesbian Javelin Throwers, Second Cousins of Transgendered Podiatrists, ad infinitum.

The lipsmacking Little Hot Mess, served at cityhouse.

Proud as we are of our community’s diversity, standing in a crowd to watch it go by can get tired year after year. Yet skipping the parade doesn’t feel like quite the right option.

The Agenda’s recommendation is a reservation for lunch and cocktails at cityhouse, the swanky second floor bar and restaurant at the Parc 55 hotel (Market and Cyril Magnin). A wall of picture windows provides grandstand quality views. And its just a quick dash out to the sidewalk to holler support for any parading pals’ groups as they pass; then you can return to your civilized, climate-controlled indoor festivities.

To help you recall the hedonistic, risqué Prides of times gone by, slurp down a Little Hot Mess (or three); it’s cityhouse’s signature concoction for Pride.

Little Hot Mess

1 oz X-Rated Fusion Liqueur 
Splash of Orange Juice
Splash of Soda

Cheers!

American Idiot, the blast-furnace of a musical built around the songs of Bay Area natives Green Day  and first produced at the Berkeley Rep in 2009 has circled back  from Broadway, landing at the Orpheum for the final run of its first North American tour (Now through July 8). The rock solid cast—including several veterans of the New York production—takes the stage with an exuberant ferocity that belies the fact that this is the last stop of a long haul that began in Toronto six months ago.

After last night’s official opening, we spotted director/conceptualist Michael Mayer positively beaming at the back of the house, surely impressed at the stamina and professionalism of this remarkable troupe. You’d be hard-pressed to name another touring show with this degree of polish.

Scott J. Campbell plays Tunny (Photo: Doug Hamilton)

The show stitches all of the songs from the 2004 American Idiot album—along with numbers from Green Day’s subsequent 21st Century Breakdown record—in a loose, poetry slam of a storyline about a troika of teenage boys seeking to escape the miasma of contemporary suburbia in search of some inchoate ‘better life.’ Propulsive punk-pop songs like “I Don’t Care” and “Know Your Enemy” effectively convey the sneering, pissed-off angst of adolescence, while anthemic ballads including “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “Wake Me Up When September Ends” alchemize sometimes self-dramatizing teen bathos into genuinely moving onstage moments.

The emotions and characters in American Idiotare as boldly and broadly drawn as graffiti tags: Musical vernacular aside, the show is much more akin to opera than to traditional musical theater: It invites its audience to get swept up in the music, to wallow and soar in grand percussive projections of their of their own emotions, rather than closely follow witty lyrics and clockwork plotting.

Arena rock spectacle at the intimate Orpheum
(Photo: Doug Hamilton)

American Idiot even has its own three tenors: Van Hughes as Johnny, who descends into heroin addiction; hunky Scott Campbell as Tunny, who joins the army out of aimlessness rather than patriotism; and Jake Epstein as Will, who stays behind in their hometown with his pregnant girlfriend. They’re remarkably focused actors, imbuing their loosely sketched roles with specific humanity and creating surprisingly individuated characters amidst the overall atmosphere of stomping ensemble spectacle.

A bell-clear sound system, an arsenal of well-deployed lighting and video effects, and Steven Hoggett’s frenetic full-bodied choreography help American Idiot concentrate and elevate the the pleasures of an arena rock show into something just as visceral, but much more rewarding in the intimate 2200-seat Orpheum.

Sit in the pit! A limited number of $25 Orchestra Pit Rush seats will go on sale two hours prior to each performance at the Orpheum Theatre Box Office only. These tickets are available to anyone and you must be present to purchase. Cash only with a limit of two tickets per person. Tickets will be sold on a first come, first serve basis.

Video clip after the jump

Read more…

You’re doubtless familiar with the Blue Man Group. Well, take a gander at White Man Group, better known as VocaPeople, the Israel-based singing ensemble now performing at the Marines’ Memorial Theater through June 17.

VocaPeople on tour in Spain

Their musical is tied together by a thin, rather extraneous plot line about alien visitors to earth (hence the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence cosmetics and bleached out wardrobe), but its really all about spotlighting the group’s remarkable vocal talents and ingenious song arrangements and mash-ups.  The show is performed entirely a cappella, but spans genres from classical, to funk, to metal (with a dollop of doo-wop, of course). If you’re looking for a lighthearted, utterly entertaining evening out over the week ahead, VocaPeople’s got the white stuff.

Check out cool Voca video after the jump Read more…

Brought to his knees by Venus!

This morning, it seemed like just another sunny day in San Francisco’s perpetual age of Aquarius. The hippies, pseudo-hippies, and tenderloin panhandlers were out in full force thanks to the glorious weather (We’re right on the edge of the foggy season, but we keep lucking out with sunny 65 degree days this week). The clear skies also made it an especially great day for astronomy lovers, as I learned when I stepped off Muni’s N line at Duboce Park. Turns out that one of the best spots in the city for dog walking and boy watching is also suitable for stargazing.

It’s hard to resist striking up a conversation with a handsome fellow who’s down on his knees with his hands around a big old telescope. So I ended up chatting with Tim DeBenedictis, the founder of  SF-based Southern Stars and a self-described “space geek.”  He had all sorts of gear set up in the park and was super psyched because “in about fifteen minutes, the Transit of Venuswill take place.”

Tim DeBenedictis (Photo: Southern Stars)

Now, I see lesbians on the Muni every day, but Tim explained that this was something special: Rarely, but predictably, the planet Venus passes between the earth and the sun, so you can actually see it—as a small black dot—moving across the sun’s face. This won’t happen again until December 10, 2117. So if you missed it, you really missed it. Sigh. (Take a look at the NASA video at the end of this post, though.)

Tim’s company has developed astronomy software at all levels: from systems for use in planetariums to the popular SkySafari smartphone app, which uses astronomical database information combined with the phone’s gyroscope and compass to let you spot constellations, planets, and other space stuff.

If you caught today’s big event, or if reading about it sets you all aquiver a la Lance Bass, check out the Bay Area’s terrific planetariums: The Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, The Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, and the Lawrence Hall of Science planetarium in Berkeley.

Check out the Transit of Venus video after the jump

Read more…

The evening's hostess, Diana Agron, and performers from Cirque du Soleil

On Saturday night, John and I attended this year’s third and final GLAAD Media Awards ceremony and gala fundraiser. Hosted by local native and Glee star Diana Agron, the SF event may not have been as star-studded as the New York and Los Angeles ceremonies held earlier this spring, but the evening had a surprising number of emotionally rewarding moments. (The star stud on the SF stage was Mario Lopez, a straight ally who also just happens to be launching his own line of fancy underpants). Among the night’s most powerful elements was the further emergence of another straight ally— Zac Wahls—as his generation’s most accessible and compelling spokesperson GLBT rights. The poised, articulate 20-year-old son of lesbian mothers who came to national attention after addressing the Iowa House Judiciary committee in defense of same-sex marriage last year is broadening his scope, taking on the Boy Scouts of America for their official policy barring GLBT leaders.

On May 30, three days prior to the GLAAD awards, former Eagle Scout Wahls appeared at the Boy Scouts’ annual national meeting in Orlando where he presented a petition signed by over 270,000 Americans on behalf of Jennifer Tyrrell, a lesbian mother from Ohio who was kicked out as a den mother for her son’s troop. Tyrrell, her partner, and their children also appeared onstage.

Adam Harmon and Pete Bennett

The GLAAD Media Award for best online digital journalism article was won by Max Rosenthal of the Huffington post and accepted by its teary-eyed subjects, Adam Harmon and Pete Bennett, who first met as West Point cadets and married within weeks of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.

Jenny Boylan

For me though, the evening’s highlight came within moments of finding my assigned table, when I discovered we were seated with Jennifer Finney Boylan, whose 2003 memoir of her struggle with gender identity and eventual reassignment surgery–She’s Not There–is one of the most compelling books I’ve read in the last decade. It’s the book that led me to understand and empathize with the T portion of the GLBT community in a way I never had before. Boylan tells her story with such an effective blend of intellect, emotion, wonder, and humor that even the most gender-unconfused readers will feel like they’re spending time with a friend and begin to see past their own ignorances and prejudices. I got to tell her how much her book had impacted me. I also got to tell her that I’d  met her once before, long ago, when she was still a young novelist named James.

Here’s a complete list of the awards presented at all three GLAAD ceremonies this year.