Disclaimer: Do not read this post unless you’ve got absolutely NOTHING better to do. Seriously. You will not feel better about yourself for knowing the following, though it may give you and your co-workers something to gab about over happy hour at Fuddrucker’s tonight.
Keith Olbermann just went public with what the conspiracy theorists among us have suspected for weeks: Charlie Sheen’s “meltdown” seems to be an act inspired by San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson.
It makes sense, and it’s not complicated: Wilson reportedly flew from spring training in Arizona to Los Angeles on Friday, February 18th, to meet with the actor and several former ballplayers — Kenny Lofton and Lenny “Ashtray Money” Dykstra among them. They all hung out at Sheen’s house. They reportedly did guy stuff. They probably ate things and said cuss words. Cocaine, alcohol, video games and/or prayer may have been involved. Who knows. Who cares. At some point, they allegedly watched Major League with some other Hollywood folks in Sheen’s private theater.
The details are irrelevant. What matters is the overarching plotline, and this can be boiled down to two all-important events:
February 18, 2011: Wilson jets to Sheenland for several hours of male bonding.
February 24, 2011: Sheen delivers the infamous rant; “meltdown” media frenzy ensues.
The common thread between the two happenings: As Olbermann observed, Sheen’s rant (and subsequent media appearances, hastily-produced online videos, etc.) reflect a persona that mimics Wilson’s in many ways. Peep the videos:
More than a passing resemblance.
Wilson told the press that he flew out to help Sheen understand the mentality and preparation that define a successful big-league closer — this in anticipation of the apparent unwarranted resuscitation of the Major League franchise (does nobody remember this?!). But Sheen’s vocabulary, cadence of delivery and overall demeanor in his subsequent meltdown productions suggest that the Wilson’s visit impacted the actor in a more immediate manner. The resemblance is too uncanny to be purely coincidental.
This assumption, then, prompts other questions: Is Wilson writing Sheen’s material? Did he help Sheen draw up the meltdown blueprint that fateful Friday night? Or did Sheen hijack Wilson’s persona without the pitcher’s permission? More importantly, did Dykstra wear shoes or arrive barefoot?
Then there’s the “Machine” angle. Wilson surpassed his teammates as the media fave last season thanks partially to the appearance of recurring masked S&M character “The Machine” (lifted from Nic Cage’s 8MM and reportedly reprised by teammate Pat Burrell) in televised interviews. As SF Weekly’s Peter Jamison points out, Sheen, playing himself in Being John Malkovich, is referred to as “Ma-Sheen” in once scene (a point not lost upon the creators of insta-site www.DreamMasheen.com). Tenuous, yes, but another similarity between the two.
The Sheen story is dumb, but that’s the point: He has capitalized on America’s celebrity obsession to reinvent his career, feeding his tabloid tormenters a perfect “Hollywood crisis” story — a paparazzo’s wet dream. True, Sheen may have lost millions by seemingly slamming the door on “Two and a Half Men,” but hey, now he doesn’t have to be on “Two and a Half Men.” Overnight, he again became relevant to the under-35 crowd (while simultaneously alienating millions of senior citizens who never bought into the radical notion of cable television). Let’s hope he can parlay this into meaningful projects and avoid becoming this year’s Betty White.
The extent of Wilson’s involvement in the saga may never be revealed, and Sheen may, indeed, prove to be mentally ill, but what’s clear is that there’s more to the story than People would have you believe. As with Banksy’s Exit through the Gift Shop and the Joaquin Phoenix faux-breakdown before, gamesmanship appears to be at play. The media, with its 24/7 emphasis on immediacy over accuracy (which encourages the publication of planted stories and devalues time-consuming endeavors like investigative journalism), are the enablers — though they also join the American public, once again, as the pawns.
Considering its use as a catch-all for music originating in the general “not North America or Western Europe” region, the “world music” label, while technically accurate, is arguably the laziest addition to the English language since Martha Stewart coined “fixer-upper” in 1914 (a title challenged in recent years as Twitter spawned The Verb That Shall Never Appear Herein).
If the sprawling genre should apply to any musical production, though, it would be to that of Thievery Corporation: Sure, Beltway stalwarts Eric Hilton and Rob Garza serve as the group’s core, but a revolving, polyglotic galaxy of guest contributors define the Corporation’s identity. From Anoushka Shankar to Seu Jorge, the collection has drawn from disparate corners of the globe over the past 15 years, mixing genres to oftentimes brilliant effect. Loyalists laud the mega-collab as groundbreaking in its synthesis of foreign sounds and cultures; detractors accuse the band of aspiring to a Starbucks-worthy brand of vapid backpacker trip-hop. Last weekend, it scarcely mattered: Thievery Corporation brought its lush consonance to San Francisco’s annual “Sea of Dreams” New Year’s festival, and 7,000 revelers converged to greet 2011 as one pulsing, euphoric mass of Day-Glo.
This isn’t to suggest, however, that the conglomerate played alone: Berlin’s Modeselektor and gypsy-punk-evolved Balkan Beat Box topped the roster of nearly two dozen acts on four stages. Thievery, in fact, effectively opened for brash SoCal DJ MiMOSA, whose 70 minutes of “crunk-step dub-hop” (his words) shut down the venue before an entranced crowd that thinned only minimally after Thievery stepped off. The throngs jiggled through a vast maze of stages, sideshows, vendors, and recovery stations, with throwback candyravers, goths, and all sorts in between ogling an impressive assortment of hanging jumbo neon constellations and other visual treats. Elaborately-bearded tea mavens from San Francisco’s OmShanTea served up hot refreshments in a Bedouin tent-like environment, while upstairs, UC-Santa Cruz grads and other mellow-outers vied for prime puffing position in the aptly named Hookahdome Lounge.
Thievery Corporation, which took the stage shortly after midnight and played well past 2 am, ran through a host of standards (yes, “Lebanese Blonde” included), drawing heavily from its latest and most political album, 2008’s Radio Retaliation (playing “Vampires,” “Sweet Tides” and “33 Degree,” to name a few). Co-founders Hilton and Garza — still the band’s only official members — presided over the stage behind twin turntables as longtime vocal mainstays LouLou (France), Sleepy Wonder (Jamaica) and Emiliana Torrini (Iceland) swapped turns in the spotlight with several other toasters, funksters and songstresses. Meanwhile, a DC-heavy collection of instrumentalists layered sitar upon sax, trumpet upon guitar, bass upon bongoes until the roof of the main hall, wracked from beyond by a howling winter’s storm and from within by relentless and rolling basslines and the heat of many thousands of sweating bodies, could take no more and dropped the first raindrops of 2011 onto the heads of the revelers below.
Never before has a leaking roof been welcomed with such enthusiasm.
Nick “Diamonds” Thorburn and Honus Honus share vocal duties for nascent indie super-conglom Mister Heavenly when they’re not fronting Islands and Man Man, respectively. (Yes, the same band that features Modest Mouse’s Joe Plummer and (for now) Michael Cera.) We caught up with them after their show last week at San Francisco’s Cafe du Nord. Among much malarkey and nonsense emerged these nuggets: Mister Heavenly’s as-yet-untitled debut album should come out around the end of next year (a new Islands album is also slated for release around the same time). Their current sound is “doom wop”; the ultimate goal is “reed-based jazz” (this means NO flügelhorn), and everybody respects everybody. Just watch the damn video already. Full transcription below.
Dunce Cap Quarterly: So tell us how this came to be — how you guys got together. Tell us the genesis.
Nick Diamonds: Mutual friendship. Just mutual friendship.
DCQ: And it’s been a few months in the works, right?
ND: Yeah, it’s been about a year. We came up a year ago, and we said we wanted to make a song or two together, and we ended up making a whole album, and we just mutually respect each others’ work.
DCQ: And you’re still doing the Islands thing, right?
ND: Still doing the Islands thing. Gonna make an Islands album in January. I think it’ll come out at the end of the year. The Mister Heavenly album will probably come out at the end of the year, too — the end of next year.
DCQ (referencing Cera): How does that Hollywood guy, the actor guy? I forget his name. He did he get involved?
ND: Oh, Keanu Reeves.
DCQ: Yeah. How’d you get him in the band? How does that work?
ND: We were just big friends of Bill & Ted’s, and The Matrix, and we just thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if Bill — or Ted — played bass for us?’ It was bogus, but…Bill was our first choice, but we got Ted, and…
DCQ: And the rest is history.
ND: …take what you can get, you know?
DCQ: This is a typical musical pseudo-journalism question, but what sound are you going for?
ND: Jazz. We’re trying to make a really authentic jazz record.
DCQ: Jazz? You seem like you might be a little bit…off.
ND: We’re working on it. I think it might take a couple records to get it to completely jazz. Right now what we’ve settled on is doom-wop, and that’s our genre. Doom-wop.
DCQ: Doom-wop.
ND: Doom. Wop.
DCQ: Describe that.
ND: Well, it’s doo-wop with doom-like subcultures. Sub…subcultures? Subtexts.
DCQ: Sub-something…
ND: Lyrically it’s doomy, but with a doo-wop aftertaste.
DCQ: Gotcha.
ND: But what we really are all into is clarinet-based jazz. Reed-based. Anything with a reed in it. So bass clarinet, clarinet, saxophone…
DCQ: Well, we’re looking forward to it…And what’ll this album be called?
ND: I don’t wanna scoop too much, but…we haven’t settled on a title yet. But Mister Heavenly is the band — that we know. Sub Pop is the label — we’re contractually obligated to put (that) out. And (the rest)…we’ll figure it out.
(irrelevant non-sequiturious banter, cut to credits)
We also got ahold of the set list from one of Mister Heavenly’s earlier shows (not sure if this is from Portland or Seattle). Some guy told us that the track “Charlyne” was an ode to Michael Cera’s ex-girlfriend, but we have no way of verifying this, and, what’s more, nobody really cares. Song names, courtesy of Honus Honus:
Remember BMG? When they offered “Ten CDs for the Price of One,” they must have assumed that most of the kids who enlisted were too hopped up on Pogs and Big League Chew to mail back the overprints they tried to foist upon you with every delivery. I was no such mark. I monitored the mailbox religiously and ‘returned to sender’ with abandon, collecting my ten damn CDs for the low damn price of one, just like the good folks at BMG had promised. Never mind the fact that I spent the next year scrawling ever-more-threatening letters in an ultimately successful campaign to make them stop sending me Kenny Loggins compilations — I had my treasure trove, and among the trendy (Nirvana’s In Utero), obligatory (Marley’s Legend), educational (The Cream of Clapton), peculiar (Green Jellÿ’s Cereal Killer Soundtrack), and Sinbad-ish (Heavy D’s Peaceful Journey), I uncovered an album that would influence my adolescence more than any other: Bad Religion’s Stranger than Fiction.
At turns uptempo and anthemic, the album is defined by Greg Graffin’s relentless, scathing vocals and driving guitar work led by Brett Gurewitz in his premature swan song with the band (he famously split with the band to lead Epitaph Records’ evolution into a major indie force). Half punk, half thrash, half rock opera (yes, this shit gets three halves), Stranger than Fiction recruited kids like me and my friends on pure aesthetics, with singles like “Infected” featuring singalong hooks conveying vague malcontent and others, like “Hooray for Me,” issuing messages that no youngster would reject: “Can you imagine for a second/Doing anything just ‘cuz you want to/Well that’s just what I do/So hooray for me…and fuck you!”
But the extent of Stranger than Fiction’s impact only began to reveal itself once “21st Century Digital Boy” got stale around the 30th repeat and we started listening carefully to the rest of the album: I would wager good greenbacks that Americans born between 1980 and 1985 learned more middle-school vocab from this album than from the oeuvres of Twain, Steinbeck and Judy Fucking Blume combined. This from “Inner Logic,” as told to a 12-year-old more accustomed to the diction of Penthouse Forum: “Graduated mentors stroll in marbled brick porticos/ In sagacious dialog they despise their average ways/ Betraying pomp and discipline, they mold their institution/ Where they practice exclusion on the masses every day.”
My discovery of Stranger than Fiction laid the groundwork for exploration of many sorts, from exhaustive encyclopedia research on all things “-theism” to the rest of Bad Religion’s work. Frustratingly, my efforts to complete the former were thwarted by the band’s expansion of the latter throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s as they continued to mine such common themes as oppression and alienation in the context of contemporary events (notably those of the political variety). Along the way there were moments of creative paralysis and subsequent rebirth (Gurewitz’s return in 2001 seen by some as a flash point in the band’s return to form). But no album, to my mind, has come close to eclipsing Stranger than Fiction.
So, then, it was to my great pleasure that Bad Religion, while touring to support their 15th studio album, Dissent of Man, dipped well into the past as it played a sold-out Regency Center in San Francisco last Friday night. In addition to early staples such as “Fuck Armageddon…This is Hell,” the band played a handful of Stranger than Fiction cuts for the heaving crowd, most of which was significantly younger than the artists (though a sprinkling of grayhairs lurked in the rafters, heads bobbing). Graffin stoked EssEff pride by launching into the ambiguously-spirited “Los Angeles is Burning,” eliciting middle fingers and hearty “Fuck LA” chants not long after proclaiming San Francisco the band’s “second city” and describing how he was once accosted by a transvestite here during an early tour. The singer, less physical a performer than he was in his salad days, nevertheless exhibited the same moxie that impressed so many young people a quarter-lifetime ago (and clearly continues to lure new generations), charging through 25-plus songs in the two-hour set and leaving the audience screaming for more even after a second encore.
I was trying to think of a clever closing line, but it’s 5:50 a.m., and goddammit, I have to get up at Doesn’t Matter tomorrow, so just enjoy these crappy videos and pipe down already:
I’m going to start off this post with a bold leap of logic that will probably alienate two of our fourteen readers; Pat and Mel, nice knowin’ ya.
If you interpret the Bible literally, YOU ARE A LUNATIC. And not in the colloquial sense. I mean clinically insane.
Naysayers — a/k/a med-school nerds — would object that this would not meet the AMA-approved definition of insanity. To that end, I reluctantly offer a compromise: While perhaps not technically insane, Biblical literalists are, at the very least, deeply delusional. The most generous way I can characterize them is as dangerously irrational.
Let us consider, for a minute, the realities of the world the Biblical literalist inhabits. Granted, there are numerous accounts from The Book that seem to hold some historical truth, that have been corroborated in part by the work of archaeologists — that vexing lot typically pilloried in literalist corners.
But then there’s “creation.” Now, bear in mind that this is not an indictment of those who doubt the validity of contemporary evolutionary theory; as with any theory, there’s surely room for argument there. If you need to believe in the shaping presence of a benevolent puppeteer to sleep at night, so be it — everyone’s got their crutch. The fact of the matter is that most Westerners who believe in creation do so in an abstract sense while hedging their religious beliefs with common sense; from this springs the glorious mess confusingly labeled “intelligent design.”
Rather, this is an examination of those whose antiquated worldview didn’t come with the rather essential add-ons of revision and compromise: this would be the literalists. They believe the following to be true:
1.) An omnipotent being known as “God” suddenly materialized in a featureless abyss.
2.) After creating an immeasurable collection of stars, planets and suns, God decided to slap together a fertile planet he called “Earth.” This took him six days. On the seventh day, he chilled. This is understandable.
3.) Toward the end of this busy week, God created a male human in his image, a man he named Adam. He promptly removed one of Adam’s ribs — without anesthesia, mind you — and this immediately grew into a female human named Eve.
This is all fine and dandy so far, mind you. A wildly ambitious sci-fi tale, a grandiose proposal of origin. Sure, the chapter’s plot is a tad light on details, but so it goes — there’s a lot happening in this world that we simply cannot explain.
Which is what makes the Fourth Tenet of Biblical Literalism all the more astonishing:
4.) The entire body of scientific research addressing the possibility that the planet’s remarkable array of living organisms, humans included, came into existence through a slow process of adaptation to changing environmental conditions, from Darwin’s early observations of Galápagos finches to yesterday’s news that a team of Canadian researchers prodded stickleback fish to alter their own genetic makeup in just two generations…is bogus.
To this growing compendium of evidence that strongly suggests there is truth to evolutionary theory — that, while still a theory, is the best, the only, answer to “Why Everything?” we’ve got — the literalists reply, “But the Bible says it happened another way. So, no, your theory is incorrect.”
And to the 99.9999999999999999999999 percent of credible Western scientists and researchers who support evolutionary theory, standing amid an ark’s worth of carbon-dated dino bones, the literalists scream, “Conspiracy.”
And thus enters the question of sanity.
But there are quacks everywhere. I mean, everywhere. And by “quacks,” I suppose I mean “most people.” The world is a chaotic and oftentimes cruel place, and if you want to seek comfort in a belief that may appear baseless to others, shit, knock yourself out. Tap on that dashboard mid-intersection as the red-light camera sets you back $300. Wear black-and-orange boxers when the Dodgers come to town. Strap a vile of blood around your neck for protection from Honduran warlords. The point is, nobody should be banned from believing in seemingly irrational concepts.
But when those concepts come to gain traction as the norm, as ritual that should observed by all — well, that simply won’t do.
California’s gay marriage ban (sort of) met its long-overdue demise yesterday, when a federal judge struck down the progeny of Prop. 8 on grounds that “moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples.” The ban’s religious proponents — Prop. 8 was bankrolled largely by Mormons — made the predictable noise about constitutionality and activist (i.e., gay/liberal/San Franciscan) judges. (Watch Chief Bigot Randy Thomasson bungle monosyllabic words and blubber on curiously for awhile here.)
As is so typical of a politically-charged issue, though, the crux of the “con” argument remains buried amid recycled sound bites. This is a debate that has raged en force in California since 2004, when Gavin Newsom declared open season for gay nuptials in San Francisco (a move still blamed by centrist Democrats for dooming the rudderless Kerry campaign). Accordingly, the terms of engagement have undergone revision: “God” and “religion” are now seldom mentioned outright by gay marriage opponents, supplanted by less polarizing terms like “morality” and “nature.” Whether or not the Biblical literalists realize it, this semantic shift implies that they recognize that Californians’ support for their fearmonger initiative is on the wane: In times past (see: Anita Bryant), they could hide directly behind the Bible. Now, they’re at the point where they feel the need to euphemize religion.
Whatever the cover, though, the supporters of Operation Nohomo all operate on one, and only one, fundamental principle: They think gayness is gross.
I’ll break it down: When Bible-bangers call gay marriage “wrong,” they really mean “gross.” When they call it “unnatural,” they really mean “gross.” When they refer to God’s condemnation of homosexuality (their interpretation), they are saying “God says it’s gross,” which really means “we think it’s gross.” And, crucially, through Prop. 8 and its brethren, they are saying “we think everyone should think it’s gross.” Chisel through the thin oppositional facade, whatever it may be, and you’ll find a person who thinks guy-on-guy action is, basically, gross. (But lesbo action is usually probably definitely OK, especially if they’re both blonde.)
The passage of Prop. 8, to extrapolate, was 52 percent of California voters collectively whining, “Yuck, gross.” Judge Vaughn’s ruling yesterday was common sense, backed by the full weight of federal anti-discrimination law, retorting, “GROW THE FUCK UP.”
This brings us to a broader point of contention, one that won’t find resolution anytime soon: Since when is our government, are our lawmakers, expected — nay, allowed — to consider the holdings of a fictional book when forming laws? The “separation” debate is a tired, exhausted, borrring one, and I’m sure it’s clear by now just where I’d land on it. Let me, then, frame it in a new light:
First, for the sake of my sanity, let’s assume that we can agree on the fact that the Bible is a famous work of fiction (in that most of the tales contained therein have yet to be verified as factual historical developments). Second, let’s assume that you, esteemed reader, are capable of temporarily detaching yourself from the philosophical pressures of American society. Imagine, for a moment, that you are a Martian visiting Earth for the first time. Or a Namibian villager who just got satellite TV. With a package that includes C-SPAN.
Working under these modest assumptions, then, let’s consider another brilliant, violent fictional tome: Wolverine #126, the comic book wherein the eponymous hero faces off against arch-nemesis Sabretooth, a malamute/musk oxen-man whose deadly claws are fortified with indestructible adamantium.
Now let’s pan to a Congressional committee hearing on the legal status of adamantium, a high-profile affair replete with celebrity lawyers and sycophantic pols:
Congressman #1: “Now, you say this, uh, adamanta-, uh, adamantom is detrimental to society, do ya?”
Lars Holman, Chief Adamantium Foe and lifelong Wolverine reader: “Yes, Mr. Chairman, I firmly believe it is. I think we’ve shown time and again that adamantium is extremely harmful to Americans, especially our most vulnerable citizens.”
Congressman #1: “And how is that, exactly? I know we’ve heard it before, but I’d just like it spelled out one more time for the benefit of my colleagues here.”
Lars: “Of course, Mr. Chairman. Well, as I’ve pointed out in the past, in Wolverine #126, Sabretooth runs amok all over downtown Amityville, slashing innocent onlookers with his adamantium claws. Wolverine, as you all know, soon comes to the rescue and subdues Sabretooth, but the damage, sirs, has already been done: That day, adamantium was directly responsible for the deaths of three young women, all innocent bystanders, all with high-set cheekbones, mini-skirts…”
Congressman #1: “Despicable…”
Congressman #2: “Good lord…”
Lars: “Yes, sirs, it is shocking. It is just that. Furthermore, toward the end of the chapter Sabretooth, after returning to his penambular cartogenator sphere, takes ou-”
Dr. Simon Coopersmith, Georgetown University Molecular Sciences Department: “Uhm, if I may, honored members of the committee…I must point out that the events Mr. Holman refers to unfolded in a work of fiction. This is a fictional account. These events did not actually…happen.”
Congressman #1: “Wh-…why…blasphemy!”
(loud, unintelligible muttering throughout room)
Lars: “I…WAS…NOT…FINISHED.”
Congressman #1: “Proceed, Mr. Holman, proceed.”
Lars: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I was saying…Wolverine #126 goes on to display for one and all the potential damage adamantium can, and will, unleash upon our free and great society should this committee fail to act. I must remind you, members of the committee, that adamantium can cut through wood, stone, metal, and, most terrifying of all…human flesh…and bones.”
Dr. Coopersmith: “Mr. Chairman, this is absurd. He’s talking about a comic book, for Christ’s sake. A comic book!”
Congressman #1: “Silence!”
Dr. Coopersmith: “But it’s, it’s NOT REAL!”
Lars: “HUMAN FLESH AND BONES!!!”
Dr. Coopersmith: “ADAMANTIUM DOESN’T EVEN REALLY EXIST!”
And that’s it; that’s how this works, whether we’re addressing Adamantium Flesh/Bone Attacks or the Great Gay Menace. So here’s to yesterday’s ruling, and to one less diversion* from the day’s real issues.
Disclaimer: This post will be relevant to almost nobody who reads DCQ.
A couple Dunces grew up in Burlingame, Calif., a “leafy” suburb south of San Francisco. The town is known for its politely progressive vibe and for producing an abundance of garage bands and a sum total of one professional athlete. Over the past decade, Burlingame also gained a reputation for fostering a slightly more lively bar scene than the slightly more boring suburbs it is wedged between (the Bay Area beyond San Fran proper being one oval-shaped clusterfuck of unbroken suburbs).
Thus, it would seem somewhat less than entirely impossible that a nightclub in Burlingame would find a way to commandeer the artists behind the marketing for Studio B and Santos Party House in New York:
Not the case: SonicLiving, through a partnership announced last spring (yeah, we know, we’re slipping) with burgeoning urban clothier/art space Upper Playground, provides poster templates created by UP-backed artists for anyone who lists an event on the site. More examples below.
As for this “Club 261,” I still say it sounds fun. I’m in. We’ll reminisce on the good old days and talk about Vegas and real estate. Don’t forget your Giants hat and Tapout tee.
If you’ve ever strolled the streets of San Fran, Manhattan or any number of other global metropoli, you’ve seen the BNE guy’s work. It’s pretty basic: Put “BNE” in all-caps Helvetica Neue Condensed, black on white. Multiply times 100,000 or so. Travel around the world, affix to stop signs, parking meters, streetlight poles, etc. Wait for people to get curious.
We started seeing the BNE stickers around SF in 2006 or thereabouts; the perpetrator would get slap-silly on entire blocks of meters in the Tendernob. Someone working for Gavin Newsom noticed it soon thereafter, and the mayor caught a few headlines — and, more significantly, contributed to the BNE guy’s murky legend — by putting a $2,500 bounty on his head. Nobody managed to collect, stickers kept going up, and the artist’s identity remained an enigma.
Then, news broke earlier this month that the guy behind BNE was setting up for a show in Hell’s Kitchen. The Paper of Record scored an unprecedented interview with the alleged artist and managed to reveal next to nothing about him. We took matters into our own filthy hands. NYC ad agency Mother, underwriting the show at its new warehouse on 11th Ave. and West 44th, tried to play up the show’s import by making it an exclusive “who do you know” deal, complete with a tight guest list we managed to weasel onto. For all the frills — dance floor, DJ, pretty people, free booze galore — the show felt uninspired: The artist’s trademark, predictably, dominated the landscape in varying forms, the most evocative of which was a 15-foot-tall block-graf rendering running the length of the north wall. Most of the other pieces commented on the alleged artist’s announced desire to rival the visibility of multinational brands. (He told the Times that “I don’t see other graffiti writers as my competition anymore. Now I’m going up against the Tommy Hilfigers, Starbucks, Pepsi. You have these billion-dollar companies, and I’ve got to look at their logos every day. Why can’t I put mine up?”)
Along with the crisp November (now December — I know, we lag) weather, and falling colored leaves came a refreshing perspective from the Bay, in the form of the new Jeremy Fish exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum. Weathering the Storm is the San Francisco artist’s premiere museum showing, and an impressive one at that, including a boatload of new paintings and a smattering of hand-carved dark wood pieces filling the stairwell and the mezzanine level of LAM.
Best known for his whimsical woodland creature/skull hybrids, Fish reveals a successful transition in the show: His familiar forms become sculptural works, including myriad bas-relief frames, a fully functional couchette, and several individual sculptures such as the F-Unicorn (my personal favorite; pictured immediately below). Fish also created a large mural engulfing several walls, overlaid with cutout paintings bearing rainy day themes referencing current world crises and struggles. Having followed his work since my San Francisco salad days, this show seems more reactionary than anything I’ve viewed previously, presenting substantial commentary throughout.
The long hallway of the mezzanine was adorned with a series of smaller cutout paintings. Reflecting on Fecal Face’s earlier coverage of Fish’s studio pre-opening, I vividly imagined how each piece came jigsawed to life in his North Beach space. These cutouts maintained the strongest link to his previous work, providing comedic and lighthearted subjects in bright colors.
The crowds came out in full force, with many from the action sports industry, established Laguna Beach art-types, and families with small children in attendance. LAM’s evolving programming is bolstered significantly by shows such as this, which appeal to patrons beyond the institution’s Sunday-afternoon-luncheon base — as evidenced by the number of youthful bodies roaming the halls.
BONUS: Upon approaching the bar, I excitedly realized that my favorite bartender-about-town, Armando, was manning the buckets. He majorly hooked a sister and her brother up. Armando, you’re “Our-Man…do” (doh.)
2) Come evening, the girls of SFC Double Dutch delight in providing an opportunity for drunk concertgoers to hurt-slash-embarass themselves.
3) Pirates on stilts bring the creep hard.
4) As a friend noted, hipsters are all closeted fans of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone,” as proven by Girl Talk’s set.
5) Grizzly Bear are wimps: They complained incessantly about the cold while playing on Sunday, and then complimented L.A. on their warm climate at the Palladium on Tuesday. More like Panda Bear, boys. P.S.: Aren’t you from Brooklyn??!?
6) Poem Guy Zach Houston commands a way longer line when the sun is shining.
7) Music can be organized as a family tree of increasing edginess, e.g.: Gin Blossoms —> Dinosaur Jr. —> Hüsker Dü. Noted during Bob Mould’s set.
8) Local graf artist Robert D Harris is adept at creating lovely works despite the damp and salty bay air.
9) Dan Deacon makes everyone smile — no matter how tough you want to look — with his dance contests and human tunnels.
Disclaimer: Do not read this post unless you’ve got absolutely NOTHING better to do. Seriously. You will not feel better about yourself for knowing the following, though it may give you and your co-workers something to gab about over happy hour at Fuddrucker’s tonight. 
by Jon Toulouse
