Fuck gay pride and fuck gay shame!

What about San Francisco Pride? And what about San Francisco Shame? Yesterday, at our 38th Annual Gay Pride Celebration, some friends of ours who came up from Los Angeles to take part in the festivities, to spend their hard earned dough on nine-dollar beers and five-dollar corn dogs, attended a party at The Phoenix Hotel. The oh so still trying desperately to be trendy Phoenix Hotel. Well, after having paid THIRTY GREEDY DOLLARS EACH, to attend this “exclusive” party, that’s NINETY dollars collectively, and no sooner had they entered these faux-hipster digs that suddenly they were all immediately and not so kindly removed from the premises by no less than FIVE ham fisted thugs with protracted brows, without cause or reason, whatsoever!

This from the Phoenix Website;

How many hotels can claim that Keanu Reeves, Joan Jett, Vincent Gallo and Little Richard have graced their mattresses (no, silly, not all at the same time!)? How many hotels are the crash pad and launching pad for world-renowned bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Psychedelic Furs and Pearl Jam; and up-and-comers like The Killers, Bloc Party and The Shins? With so much creative energy swirling around you never know who might be strumming a guitar, posing for a photo shoot or just kicking back by the pool.

I suppose I would seem naïve to not expect such vulgar displays of violent idiocy coming from a hotel, which boasts the likes of Keanu Reeves and The Red Hot Shitty Peppers to hock their wares online!

This is the kind of stupidity that shames this beautiful city of ours and makes visiting tourists from say…Helsinki…say to themselves, “ah…on second thought, maybe we should just have our holidays in Oslo or Stockholm.”

I mean honestly, these friends of ours? Not burning man burnouts, not pee in the pool pugilists from Petaluma, not loud, hardly security risks! Unless of course management at The Phoenix Hotel finds kind, sweet and genuinely interesting people threatening.

And this from Rolling Stone Magazine;
“The Phoenix Hotel has fast become the hotel of choice for the rock community, with a fancy swimming pool, jungle sounds piped into the courtyard…this could be your ticket to hanging poolside with the likes of Radiohead or Sonic Youth…”

All the fancy and no doubt expensive ads in the world, all the cheesy quotes from boring magazines are never going to exonerate your repugnant actions yesterday. Perhaps we here at World Famous in San Francisco should contact the corporate entity, Joie de Vivres Hotels, that owns you, and demand an apology. It is shit like this that makes San Francisco, in the words of my friend Mark who’s from Halifax, Nova Scotia say, “San Francisco is so…provincial.

Ok, surprise! Arthur is having financial issues again. I know its more of an LA thing than an SF thing but they always seem more SF at heart, right?

Anyway, while I’m presonally never 100% into what they’re covering I’m definitely on their side. I donated, maybe you want to too?

In case you somehow missed it in the press, the latest dispatch from Emile:

Bon Soir Madames et Monsieurs!

Je suis Emile.

I will be in town one night only, just in from Jakarta, this coming
Saturday night at Thee Parkside, 28 June. I will be in performing with
my newly formed band. We had to get rid of a “little” dead wait…so
we fired our fat drummer! But we are gluttons for the punishments so
Mademoiselle Cote will be flying in from that glamorous
downtown…err…Louisville…err…kentucky…and joining in on with
fun with her very special, patented brand of…err…humor and
hammering out the pure gold faggot beats as the new Sodom celebrates
the pride of the homosexuals.

Cum and let me be inside you!!!

in loving…

emile

6/28/08 10 PM $6
@ Thee Parkside
1600 17th Street @ Wisconsin
San Francisco, CA
Mon Cousin Belge
Ice Cream Socialites
The Caldonias

Be sure to come, this is gonna be something. Emile hasn’t been able to perform in the US for over a year and a half (damn the department of homeland security!!). Its been worth the wait though, he’s bringing with him limited pre-release quantities of MCBs debut album Quelle Horreur. Mon Dieu!

These aren’t my favorite photos but I took ‘em and I posted ‘em to flickr so I guess now you gotta look at ‘em.

I was all about The Fresh & Onlys before I saw them. Then I saw ‘em. I dunno if all the reverb impaired my senses or if it was some kind of triggered memory from the last time I was at the Rickshaw Stop, but when they all burst into dance for the end number I decided I might not need to follow them too closely.

Sic Alps weren’t extra good like I thought they were going to be, but they were extra lovable. As tempers flared over equipment failures they endeared themselves to me with every smashed guitar, defective cord thrown into the audince, knocked over microphone, and breath of fresh air grabbed outside. When the equiment cooperated though, all right!

Singer was last and good enough. All of the advanced press was accurate — lots of US Maple moves were copped. The last song was the best. I remember thinking the word pummeling. Thats a trick US Maple never pulled off and probably why I thought it was the best of the bunch.

When I was in Tennessee, visiting, my mom and I were totally grooving to Sta Prest and I’ve been meaning to make them the myspace of the week since. And so now they are.

Looking like the B52s, sounding like the Au Pairs by way of New Zealand (that organ!) as played by Stephen Pastel, these guys and gals had records on Outpunk Records and Kill Rock Stars. They were totally at the front of the queercore scene which, as i remember it (being that i was a totally faggy teenager), was a big deal and is probably why they have a Wikipedia entry from which I am now going to gratuitously quote:

The band first made its appearance on the queercore record label Outpunk Records, on its compilation Outpunk Dance Party. Soon afterwards they released their first EP, Vespa Sex, also on Outpunk. Like other bands influenced by the nascent Riot Grrrl scene in Olympia, Washington, New York No Wave, and European post-punk, core members of Sta-Prest (Aloofah, Dudley Manlove, and Professor Swish) adopted pseudonyms, swapped instruments between songs, and practiced a consensus-based approach to song composition. A revolving membership included Tetley, Twi Tybat, Clutch-y-Spun, and Scout.

In 1997. the band appeared in performance in the seminal documentary film She’s Real, Worse Than Queer by Lucy Thane.

In 2002, Aloofah, a.k.a. Iraya Robles and Dudley Manlove, a.k.a. Gary Fembot, appeared in Maximum Rocknroll’s “Queer Punk” issue, featured in a discussion with other queer-identified musicians Martin Sorrondeguy of both Los Crudos and Limp Wrist and Aaron Detroit of The Little Deaths.

The coolest thing about this band though is that, unlike many of their peers, they still actually sound pretty good today which is why they’re the myspace of the week. Check it out!

http://www.myspace.com/staprest

He is the man of men! He is the man of men magnets! look into those eyes. you want to move to Pacifica with him and massage his aching shins when he’s come home from a nice bike ride through the surrounding hills. You want to stroke his thick man muscles and caress his cyclist thighs! You can scarcely contain yourself! He will only destroy you in the end. Don’t you understand? Don’t you understand!!!

Lets back off of the hate (But what do you expect, its ass retarded hot out there. Who moves the bay area for the heat?) and focus a little more on… aggression. Remember when I was all Mayyors? And then I was all Duuudes! Yeah, ok: Videos of the Mayyors destroying @ The Eagle:

The Mayyors LIVE – Part 1 from Eighty Four Films on Vimeo.

The Mayyors LIVE – Part 2 from Eighty Four Films on Vimeo.

Brought to you by that J. Howell guy/eighty four films who also posted the first episode of Forest City Rockers (featuring the Mayyors… surprise!). Apparently each episode will be cartoon and live footage of (hopefully) more mean ass shit:

Forest City Rockers Episode 1 from Eighty Four Films on Vimeo.

You know, I don’t even know why this is on my radar. I should pay more attention to my day job for sure, but:

What bay area band recently released a video that is sure to make me violent? Its seriously terrible. Best comment gets a prize of some sort. If I already emailed you about this you are disqualified. Sorry!

I’ve been crazy busy, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this. Do you know Dynasty Handbag? (And I don’t mean this, I can’t believe you even mentioned it!) I can’t tell you how many people I have harassed about checking her out. Ever since I saw lady friend’s most hilarious mental break down a few years ago at Bottom of the Hill I’ve been a fan. I won’t do it justice describing it, but..

The first time I saw this I was caught off guard. I thought I was just getting some solo version of the band Dynasty and, truth be told, I wasn’t that jazzed about that. I mean they were a good party band but… anyway. From the first smudge of her lipstick I knew this was going to be different. Over the course of twenty minutes we got a one woman show shoved into the context of a “concert”. Demented electro “pop” performed by what I think is an aged out vegas show girl on the verge of losing it. “Songs” are interrupted by a diembodied voice that I remember having a(n appropriately?) german accent (that is, if you buy into that sort of thing). It berated her. Tore her down. Told her what to be. She looks disoriented and determined to… oh just watch!

This shit is hilarious, every time i see her she has me laughing so hard people are afraid of me. We don’t get to see it so much around these parts since she up and moved to New York and took this lady out of the club and into the Theater. Which brings me to my point. She’s here this weekend with Taylor Mac (who was really hilarious at that Weimar NY thing, but it was just one number so I can’t vouch for a show) and you should really be checking this out:

Earl Dax and Direct from NYC Present

Together Alone At Last!

‘Dynasty Handbag: Tales from the Purse’

Thursday and Saturday, June 19 and 21 at 8:00pm

Friday and Sunday, June 20 and 22 at 10:00pm

AND

‘The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac’

Thursday and Saturday, June 19 and 21 at 10:00pm

Friday and Sunday, June 20 and 22 at 8:00pm

CounterPULSE (1310 Mission Street)

The 11th Annual National Queer Arts Festival you say? In little ole San Francisco? 11th annual? Ostentatious bullshit! Or should i say…cow shit! Well, one thing is for sure, it proved to me something I’ve known for some time. And that is, categorically, that is to say, absolutely, that there are NO talented lesbian musical artists in San Francisco. Highlights of the evening you ask? Well, there was an impromptu titty act which involved two lovely ladies and four lovely breasts! i don’t think though that THEY were an official part of the program.
I mean, come the fuck on ladies! I, “opted” for the 10 dollar suggested donation, and found a well attended event only to find myself very shortly thereafter, shirking in embarrassment, and recoiling in anger at having spent TEN FUCKING DOLLARS on a bunch of TALENTLESS CRAP!!!
Alas though, finally, and maybe miraculously, the night was saved, when two sublimely hysterical women from…CANADA…Toronto to be exact, took the stage, and single handedly saved all woman kind.
Gentlemen and…Ladies…I give you…
Ina Unt Ina!