by Gene Mahoney
June 2001
There sure is a lot going on as I write this: The energy crisis
continues, the Democrats take back control of the Senate, President George Dubya
Bush continues his attack on the environment and the poor -- but you know what?
I’d rather write about the Go-Go’s new CD.
Man, I can’t stop listening to this thing! It’s the best CD I’ve
heard in years! From the Go-Go’s yet! I mean, I like the Go-Go’s a
lot. They were the first band I ever saw live (the first rock concert I ever
went to was the Police “Ghost in the Machine Tour” back in ’82
at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, and the Go-Go’s were the warm-up act.)
1982! Ah yes, it seems like just 19 years ago. Anyway, who’d have thought
their comeback album would be THIS GREAT?!!
I first read about their latest effort about a month or two ago in The New Yorker,
where some music critic wrote about how it took the Donnas just a few years
to put out their fourth album, and it took the Go-Go’s twenty. Hey, this
was worth the wait. I can’t think of the last time I played an album all
the way through over 25 times in one week. Charlotte, Belinda, Kathy, Gina,
Jane -- if you’re reading this: Let’s take a trip to Utah so I can
marry all five of you. God Bless the Go-Go’s from Beyond Music: Check it
out, and read Kimberlye Gold’s review of it (and interview with bassist
Kathy Valentine), along with her reviews of Dido, Dave Matthews, and Living
Colour in this issue’s Almost Famous column....
The 2nd Annual San Francisco Bohemian Arts Ball was thrown May 19th at that
infamous Tenderloin bar Jezebel’s Joint (510 Larkin), and it was an event
I will always remember. Why? Because it’s the first time I ever went someplace
and gladly paid the door charge instead of trying to mooch my way in for free
by saying I was a publisher. The money went for a good cause, anyway; to help
out the folks who put on television shows for Public Access, Channel 29. I didn’t
know who anyone there was (but if I did have a TV I would watch Channel 29 and
I would know.) I remember a beautiful blond woman in a bumble bee outfit who
apparently was host of a program called Queen Bee. I remember a stripper from
the far east -- the lovely Miss Japan who said (in not very fluent English)
that she was over here from the land of the rising sun for 2 weeks promoting
a movie they made about her, which will be shown at the Sex Workers’ Film
Festival at The Roxie (probably around the same time you read this.) She told
me she misses her boyfriend back home.
I remember some people giving me dirty looks because, apparently, they didn’t
dig my half-assed, thrown-together-at-the-last-second fetish outfit (complete
with Levi Dockers!) I remember some naked guy running around the place (actually,
I’m trying to forget that.) I remember them videotaping performances, probably
for Tranny Talk, which according to the flyer they gave me, is the first TV
talk show for transsexuals (In San Francisco? Imagine that.) I remember talking
to the divine ebony goddess Dee Dee Russell, star of Dee Dee TV (9pm Wednesdays.)
According to the flyer, this is her show’s 6th anniversary and she’ll
celebrate by ranting naked on TV all month. I remember Dee Dee introducing me
to someone new each time I spoke to her. I thought she was being friendly until
I realized she was doing it because she was working the door and I was bothering
her with incessant chatter. Sorry, darlin’. Let’s see, I guess that’s
it. Oh, wait -- how could I forget? I got to see one of my favorite people --
the lovely and talented Ms. Sharon Leong, one of the bright spots on the SF
art scene. Sharon’s artwork, she says, comes from her unending feeling
of “sexual tension” and usually comes out in the form of paintings
depicting seedy pulp fiction novels. Visit her online at www.queenofbpaintings.com....
Yet another place to practice yoga: Mission Yoga opened May 14th at 2390 Mission
Street (@ 20th) on the second floor. Call 401-YOGA for more info. The flyer
I have here says it’s Bikram Yoga. Hey, you want Bikram Yoga? Then head
on down to Funky Door Yoga at 1336 Polk (@ Pine). $10 gets you 10 days. Call
673-8659 for more info. See their ad on the back cover of this issue....
That middle aged gentleman you see in the Financial District hawking his poetry
on the street is still at it. Yep, Mr. Ralph T. Merrell is still schlepping
his xeroxed pages of words for merely a dollar each. Buy a poem, make his day....
Sublime Tat II, a new tattoo parlour at 575 Haight Street is now open. Ironically,
when I walked in there they were playing the self-titled CD by Sublime.... Borderlands
Books, that Hayes Valley book shop specializing in science fiction, fantasy,
and horror has relocated to 866 Valencia Street, where Captain Jack’s used
to be....
Want some good reading but can’t make it down to Borderlands? Then log
on to www.sfherald.com and check out the latest from James Dylan. If you missed
his “Worst Roommate Ever” story last month, it’s still there,
along with two new stories about the decline of the small town parade and his
year in Vegas as a limo driver, where he drove around brothel prostitutes and
on one humorous occasion, super-duper model Claudia Schiffer and her then-boyfriend,
world renowned magician David Copperfield.... Even though California has endless
sunshine, vast rolling windy plains and large reservoirs of geothermal heat,
our state still produces 90 percent of its power from fossil fuels and other
dirty, unsustainable sources. Or at least that’s what a flyer Ben Perlman
of CALPIRG gave me on Haight Street says.
Contact Ben via email: ben93080@cats.ucsc.edu to find out how you can help foil
big oil....
Actually, I hope to see you at the TRULY SF HERALD EVENT on June 23rd, 8pm at
Cafe Proust (1801 McAllister, 345-9560.)
This will be the 3rd Anniversary Party for the San Francisco Herald. Live jazz
will be performed by the Haight Ashbury Free Band.
Gene
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