Before I chat about one of the greatest good times you can have in SF this weekend, let me point out one of the big fails in gay men’s general efforts to have a good time these days. Let’s call it the “Want Ads” factor, in honor of the 1971 #1 hit by the rollicking R&B trio, Edna Wright & The Honey Cone, which also scored big with the similarly sassy, sing-along worthy singles “Stick Up,” One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show” and “Girls, It Ain’t Easy.”

The “Want Ads” factor works like this: You post an ad featuring a flattering photograph taken of yourself, oh 5, 10, 20 (?!?) years ago and are shocked—shocked!—when your OKCupid date or Grindr hook-up is disgruntled upon meeting today’s version of you. Gentlemen, what’s disgruntling is not just that we look different—or, if you insist,”worse”—these days; it’s that:

• We’re bait-and-switching
• We’re suggesting that we don’t like ourselves as we are (So why should anyone else?)
• We’re mutually disrespecting the value of each others’ personalities, life experiences, and talents as we bow to the altar of superficial aesthetics

As an (admittedly tangential) example, let’s look at the photo that the Rrazz Room has been using to promote Edna Wright & the Honey Cone’s shows this Friday and Saturday night (top), followed by a photo of Edna as she actually appeared last year (bottom):

Edna Wright (center), circa ???

Edna today. Smiling, seasoned, and ready to rock you.

As far as a good time goes, yeah, in her ingenue days, Edna Wright may have been sleek and polished.  But admit it, today’s Edna looks like waaaaay more fun.

And let me tell you—it’s the truth. Now in her mid-60s, the sparkplug sister of Darlene Love puts on a fierce, fabulous show. She’s Tina Turner without the Euro-pretensions. Along with her own hits—originally released on Hot Wax records by Holland-Dozier-Holland after the superstar songwriting/production trio left Motown—Wright plays some classic R&B covers, flirts madly with the audience, and generally has everyone in the crowd on their feet, letting their hair down (if they haven’t lost it all yet), clapping, and shaking their maybe-not-so-tight-anymore tuchuses.

When you get together with fellow grown-ups for an evening of live music like this, it reminds you that there’s much to celebrate in getting older, wiser, and more experienced. Embrace yourselves and boogie!

Want Ads video, after the jump

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If you’re planning ahead—whether for the weekend, or for Christmas—mark Friday through Sunday (August 3-5) on your calendar for a visit to the American Craft Council’s annual exhibition at Fort Mason Center, featuring work from over 200 artists. With prices ranging from the tens- to the tens-of-thousands, the country’s largest juried craft show west of the Rockies is highlighted this year by two new exhibition categories sure to appeal to the Bay Area’s crafty cognoscenti:

• Foodieware features fully functional art for the kitchen and dining room. From cutlery to serving platters to woven table dressings, this is the intersection of beauty and utility. While it can be  nervewracking to select purely artistic craftwork to give to others, the practical dimension of the items on display in these booths makes them particularly gift worthy.

• Men’s Department focuses on one-of-a-kind handmade wearables and accessories for guys, including Santa Rosa leather artist Richard Davis’ museum-worthy murses.

Lesbian jewelry artists Lou Ann Townsend and Mary Filapek try to capture the cosmos in their work.

Members of the Bay Area’s overlapping scientific and GLBT communities will want to check out the bold sterling silver and polymer jewelry created by art- and life-partners Mary Filapek and Lou Ann Townsend, from North Carolina. The pair point to atomic and cellular structure as a major influence on their work, and the copy on their website suggests that they’ll be quite a hit with the local girl-geek crowd: “Two sodium atoms are walking along the street when one stops and says, ‘Oh my God, I think I’ve lost an electron.’ ‘Are you sure?’ asks the other sodium atom. ‘Yes,’ replies the first sodium atom, ‘I’m positive.’”

On Friday  from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.,  admission to the exhibition will be discounted to $5 (from $14), with live music and free sampling of Balvenie Single Malt Whiskey livening up the evening hours

PASSPORT magazine favorite Bryan Batt, of Mad Men and Jeffrey fame,  recently visited the ACCS’ East Coast show in Baltimore to find items for his  New Orleans design shop, Hazelnut.  Video after the jump

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The dirty kid brother of the Folsom Street Fair takes place this Sunday

On occasion, I’ll be sharing snapshots of some of the most interesting signage and promotional material I come across in the San Francisco Bay Area. Perhaps due to our relatively mild weather, we’ve got a veritable street front museum of vintage retail signage. We’ve also got a large percentage of clever, sassy, and flat-out weird folks in our midst—and they sometimes find highly amusing ways of expressing themselves. And we’ve got plenty of hardworking entrepreneurial immigrants who, frankly, have every right to focus on running the nuts-and-bolts of their businesses rather than proper English spelling and translation—But let’s face it, there are some mighty funny errors to be found on Chinese menus and the like.

Today, as we head into this weekend’s notorious annual Up Your Alley street fair, may I proudly present the difference between our part of the world and the Vatican:  One of the most irksome recent acts by the Catholic church was its smackdown of the Yale Divinity School’s Sister Margaret Farland, who sensibly suggested that masturbation—in addition to providing pleasure—could be a sensible part of the world’s birth control repertory.

Clearly, that’s not the presiding perspective in the Bay Area, as inadvertently noted by this delightful storefront awning I discovered in Oakland last week*:

And woman, too…right Sister Margaret?

*Beyond the laughs-in-translation value of its slogan, this store is truly remarkable.  Check out the MAN MUST WAK video after the jump…

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So, on a recent reporting trip for PASSPORT magazine’s upcoming October spa issue, I totally counteracted a visit to The Spa at the Healdsburg Hotel  in Sonoma County with a walk across the Healdsburg town square to Powell’s Sweet Shoppe, where I sacrificed my newly health-infused body to a $100,000 Bar and a licorice whip or seven (Damn nostalgia!)

Powell’s feels as much like a museum as a retail outlet, with brilliantly curated and displayed confections that will tickle your sweet tooth and your memory bank. There’s also a great display of  CandyLand boxes and game boards from the early 20th Century to the present, showcasing a fascinating evolution in kid-friendly graphic design. The quality and attention to detail at Powell’s is so top-notch I was genuinely surprised to learn that it’s part of a small California-based chain (Other Bay Area locations include Berkeley, San Jose, and Petaluma). Whether you’re 20 or 80, you’re likely to come across a favorite candy from your childhood that you haven’t seen in years (Just read through Powell’s Candy by Decade  list to get your synapses firing and your mouth watering).

You can also cobble together some cool candygrams to text home to the hubby:

 Check out Powell’s promo video, after the jump…

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Folks around the country are always making light of San Franciscans’ fetishistic foodies. And while its true we have our share of proselytizing vegans, strident locavores, gluten demonizers, and the like, its also true that, on the whole, we seem to truly enjoy food—eating it, cooking it, talking about it, building community around it—than any other American city I can think of. The Bay Area offers top-quality farmers’ markets every day, enough restaurants to eat in a different one every night for more than five years (for real!), educational institutions like the San Francisco Cheese School, and edifying celebrations like the annual Freestone Fermentation Festival.

Perhaps the spot that most positively captures the Bay Area’s love of all things edible is 18 Reasons, a welcoming storefront non-profit in the the Mission District, on the same block as the famed Bi-Rite Creamery and Bi-Rite Market, whose owners operate the food-centric community center.

18 Reasons hosts a remarkable range of programming: Knife skills lessons, chocolate and wine pairings, pickle-making classes, food-related book groups, local farmers’ lectures, drop-in suppers, introductions to various ethnic cuisines with lectures and tastings, culinary art exhibits. Virtually all are open to the general public, and offered at discounted fees to members. Beyond the specific topic at hand, 18 Reasons’ events provide an opportunity to meet folks who share a passion for food:  For locals, its a great way to expand one’s social circle; and for out-of-towners with a hunger for culinary experience its an opportunity to access a vortex of voluble local food folk. Stop in on the first day of a vacation and you can probably get tips on a whole week’s worth of under-the-radar foodie experiences.

For a small, community-based operation, 18 Reasons does a remarkable job of planning ahead: listings of classes and events are posted several months in advance, so its realistic for travelers to include a visit in their San Francisco itineraries.

And if you can’t make it to town, you can always daydream over a new series of 18 Reasons videos.  Find the premier after the jump

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Capurro wields his mic like a knife. Fair warning: He’ll cut you.

Last Thursday night, John and I took three unsuspecting straight friends to see Scott Capurro at the Punch Line. Perhaps not the wisest choice. The San Francisco-born, London-based comedian delivers some of the most provocative gay-oriented stand-up material around. At one past Capurro performance, I watched him coax a straight college boy into defining “rimming” in front of his parents and girlfriend; a festive family evening on the town.

Luckily for those of us whose funny bones are right up Capurro’s alley, he’ll be performing twice more locally in the next few weeks. On August 1 at George’s in San Rafael and back at the Punchline on August 14, where he’ll host his own salacious live talk show, Scott Capurro’s Position. Capurro is a regular favorite at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where the surrey-like comedy tastes do indeed have a fringe on top (and bottom, as the case may be). His material is actually significantly deeper than some of his audience members appreciate. Embedded amidst the snarky stories and unfiltered audience repartee about fisting, golden showers, and other exotica is a vitriolic rebuttal against prejudices of all sorts. When he’s at his sharpest, Capurro slyly forces you to wonder how far it is from being appalled at some particular sex act to reflexively passing judgement on all manner of more important social and political issues.

Bravery with a side of belly laughs.

Capurro  stand-up video, after the jump [Not safe for work!]…

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Matt Yee comes in from the sea this Saturday night

If you’ve ever been on an Atlantis gay cruise, odds are you’ve found yourself drawn in the the very corny, slightly porny and utterly irresistible whirlpool of musical energy that is a Matt Yee singalong.  Pounding the keyboards in his signature muumuu, moving through a succession of wild wigs, whipping out punny props and hit-or-miss gags with the relentlessness of Carrot Top, Yee tosses away his own inhibitions—and it’s utterly infectious. Any shyness you have about singing in public will be wiped out by Yee’s overwhelming tsunami of silliness. You will sing. You will dance. You will make synchronized hand gestures.

A Hawaiian native—and still a resident when he’s not off floating the seven seas (Yee performs frequently on mainstream Royal Carribean cruises as well as on GLBT charters), the seafaring songster makes a rare shoreside appearance for a 10:30 pm. late show at the Rrazz Room this Saturday night. Cancel your Martuni’s plans pronto! (Or head over there afterwards if you’ve still got the music in you!). The evening’s repertoire is likely to swing frantically from TV theme songs, to Broadway tunes, to pop hits; a maniacal mash up, masterfully orchestrated by a man who makes it all look incredibly offhand and casual. However the rest of your week is going, you can guarantee yourself a big smile this Saturday night.

 Video of Matt with Idina Menzel, after the jump

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Made from actual game balls used in the Giants-Rangers 2010 World Series

One of our favorite shops in town is On The Fly at the Embarcadero, a veritable Museum of Modern Manliness, full of everything from hiking boots to high-end booze, boar-bristle shaving brushes to custom-tailored shirts.

As our beloved Giants head into the crucial second half of this year’s season, we’re finding ourselves intensely attracted to these unique accessories, made from balls actually used in the Giants-Rangers 2010 World Series. At $450 a pair, its a pricey item, but think of how much you paid for your tickets if you were lucky enough to attend the series.  And remember that there are only a limited number available —Tokens & Icons, the Berkeley-based company that makes them acquired some of the used game balls, but, obviously, there’s a finite supply; especially since every link includes stitching).

They come with certificates of authenticity and an MLB hologram code that will point you to details of the specific game at MLB.com.

Dandy links like these are a much more subtle and stylish way to show team spirit than decking yourself out in head-to-toe made-in-China black and orange gear. They’re great conversation starters and go over much better in the boardroom than your mustard stained Fear the Beard t-shirt.

On the Fly also carries Tokens & Icons certified links made from game-used NBA basketballs, NHL hockey pucks, and college footballs. Online ordering is available.

This Friday, July 20, the historic Fairmont Hotel will promoting its pet-friendly policies by hosting a furry fashion show from 1:30 to 2 p.m., spotlighting Artychokers dog collars and fashion accessories. It’s a free event, but show up early: The Fairmount’s opulent lobby  is a draw in itself. And San Francisco is absolutely crazy for canines.

But why?

Well from my own past experience as a gay bachelor and the tales I hear from my unattached gay male and straight female friends, it may have to do with the fact that its mighty tough to find a decent fellow in this town. “Men”—it’s been said, in exasperation—”are dogs!”

Conversely, perhaps dogs are men. Or at least role models—perhaps even acceptable short-term substitutes—for men. They certainly express many of the traits we wish for in our guys: loyalty, unconditional affection, willingness to have dinner whenever we say its time.

That’s the concept behind “Gentleman Norman: How to Be A Man,” in which a wise old pomeranian serves as a sort of “man whisperer,” providing advice on grooming, etiquette, wardrobe, and relationship maintenance to hapless guys who aren’t quite up to the civilized standards of an over groomed Polish puppy.  The Gentleman himself (along with owner Laura Martella) will be special guest hosts at the Fairmount event, with books on hand for selling and signing.

Adorable? Charming? Barking mad? I think the book of Norman is quite akin to The Book of Mormon: bizarre, out-of-touch with reality, and highly amusing.

Some proceeds from sales of the book will benefit Alzheimer’s and Cystic Fibrosis charities.

Go behind the scenes for  Gentleman Norman’s Fairmont photo shoot video after the jump Read more…

For 15 years, San Francisco author Michelle Tea has spearheaded Sister Spit, a loose collaborative of roadtripping queer writers and performers that brings alcohol- and vegan meatloaf-fueled evenings of cabaret-styled provocation to college campuses, community centers, and art spaces around the country. This fall, venerable SF publisher City Lights will launch an entire line of Sister Spit Books, to be curated by Tea, whose own past novels, including the lesbian landmark Valencia bode well for what promises to be an edgy, engaging imprint. We’ll keep SF Agenda readers informed about local authors and events related to Sister Spit, but while we wait for news, we asked Michelle to answer our Insider Tips questionnaire about some of her recommendations for SF visitors and locals.

 The GLBT Historical Society. Their archives are open to the public, and contain really incredible artifacts – Harvey Milk’s Levi’s, Sylvester’s sequined stage costumes, a bar stool from the legendary ‘female impersonators’ nightclub Finnochio’s. They have the entire collection of every On Our Backs ever published (who knew Dorothy Allison was writing for them at the start?! Not me!). One gentleman left the Society a collection of his lovers’ pubic hair, all neatly collected in little glass jars and labeled with their names. It’s really a fun and vast collection, and they also run a storefront museum in Castro on 18th Street that shows different aspects of the archives with cultural context. San Francisco is really lucky to have this institution!

What’s the best spot to take in a view of the city?

Probably the view from the top of Dolores Park. The park itself curves out beneath you like this pretty green bowl, and then beyond that is the city. It’s a great, inspiring view, especially on a sunny day. At night I like the view of the waterfront when you’re driving back over the Bay Bridge. It looks so charming and exciting, old fashioned somehow with the ferry building, but totally not, with the giant buildings.

Michelle Tea has to eat and run (Photo: Amos Mac)

You are one of the best dressed literary ladies around.  Where do you like to shop.

For clothes, in the Mission, I like the Candy Store Collective and The Bell Jar. For vintage Stone Pony and Painted Bird are great and for actual thrifting, Community Thrift and Thrift Town. In a city of mad thrifters you can still find treasures at these places! I also love high-end consignment and discount stores, and good places for that are Sui Generis and in the Castro (second hand stuff you can’t afford the first time around) [Ed.: Honey, love that store, but I can't afford most of their stuff the second time around either!], and My Roomate’s Closet in the Marina (where Philip Lim and Costume National go to die).

For interesting ephemera I like 826 Valencia (which is like a fun house on top of being an actual store, where one can open drawers and discover dioramas, or get themselves swabbed. That would be a trap door of mop heads tumbling down on you.) and Paxton Gate and Viracocha, which is like a beautiful art installation you can buy earrings at.

For books I love Dog Eared Books, which are new and used with a fantastic remainder table. And City Lights is the best is like being in a museum and  wonderful bookstore at the same time. There is so much history, and then shelves of the best edgy and political work that is out right now. A whole alcove dedicated to zines and chapbooks, and a whole floor dedicated to poetry! Unheard of!

What would you tell visitors are San Francisco’s “must eats”? 

I am obsessed with the tacos and burritos from Pancho Villa on 16th Street in the Mission, in particular their chili verde chicken, which is stewed and delicious. I like to get ‘baby burritos’, which are slightly smaller version of the giant ones that can be a bit too much. You can pick spinich or chili tortillas, and there are tons of bean options, like 10 different agua frescas and a giant salsa bar. Also, for a really special and slightly otherworldly dining experience, check out Outerlands, in the Outer Sunset just blocks from the ocean. It looks like it was made by ocean-dwelling gnomes, with driftwood and plants hung on rusting chains, and the food is really great.Their Sunday brunch is awesome, and the wait can be annoying but a few doors down is Trouble Coffee, a little shop that sells only three things – coffee, fresh young coconuts (they slice the top off for you) and thick slices of cinnamon toast. Get some caffeine and a snack to tide you over and browse overpriced but lovely hippie wares at The General Store. If it’s a nice day check out their backyard, which has a big old picnic table and a lovely little greenhouse.

And for the best, most extravagant meal of your life, splurge at Atelier Crenn, a Michelin-starred restaurant where a wildly talented and creative French chef serves up Asian-inspired dishes with the help of molecular gastronomy.The menu is a poem, and on my visit one of the desserts came with smoked fog. Yes, fog.

More food, drink, and—gulp—death, after the jump Read more…