I finally made it last Friday night to the Queer Open Mic at the 3 Dollar Bill Cafe in San Francisco’s LGBT Community Center. MCs Cindy Emch and Sherilyn Connelly opened up the night goofing around with the mic. Someone had sent Cindy some amazing branchy, antlery sticks (maybe madrone twigs?) made into pencils, with the graphite perfectly inset, and the package had come anonymously to be delivered at the event. This made my night, even though I didn’t get an antlery stick pencil – it was so sweet and perfect.

I devoured some delicious french toast and licked the syrup off the plate, feeling very glad that the 3 Dollar Bill had hot food. Read on for the details of the spoken word performances:

Technorati Tags: cafe, music, poetry, lgbt, reading, sanfrancisco, spoken word, writing

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In case you’re still stuck at work and planning to get on BART, heed the advisory from BART’s web site.

ATTENTION PASSENGERS: DUE TO A POLICE MATTER AT HAYWARD STATION; TRAINS ARE BEING HELD OUT OF HAYWARD STATION UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.. THIS IS CAUSING A DELAY IN SERVICE IN BOTH DIRECTIONS ON THE FREMONT LINE OF APPROX. 15 TO 20 MINUTES., IN ADDITION THE HAYWARD BART STATION HAS BEEN CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THIS INCONVIENCE ..THANK YOU!!!
Last Updated: Mon Jan 29, 6:10 PM

I caught a tiny bit of the info on the NBC 11 news a few minutes ago.

Edit: Story from NBC11 is now online. Possibly not a shooting?

I almost crashed the car when I saw these big solar-powered parking meter things on Jefferson Ave. in Redwood City. They are huge — at least six feet tall — and gleaming.

Redwood City’s parking page hasn’t been updated yet to mention them, so I don’t know anything about them — except what’s on a big flier pasted on each meter, pictured after the jump. Among other things, it says you will be able to “pay with your cell phone.”

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It’s been almost two months since the Giants and Barry Bonds agreed on a one-year deal for his services in 2007, and today the AP is reporting that the problematic slugger is in town ready to sign the contract.

The news comes after weeks of speculation that the team was looking for ways to get out of the agreement, especially after anonymous sources revealed Bonds had tested positive for amphetamine use and tried to blame a teammate as the source of the illegal substance. But talk has died down in the last week, and the parties may be headed for closure.
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OK, never say I didn’t warn you…

I’m at Spec’s last night, go to the little girl’s room, and sure enough they are having an issue with their plumbing. My granddad taught me almost everything there is to know about bathroom plumbing- it was an odd fascination with him- as he rigged an extra shower/bathroom in his garage for some reason. Nothing so advanced was an issue at Spec’s, tho, so I plunged, wash my hands, return to table. I notify the table that we may want to leave as there’s plumbing issues. I also inform the bartender who is like: “Thank you so much! Nobody does it, but that’s why they’re there!” Needless to say, I got a free drink.

I was telling the above story to Lauren, and she reminded me of the last time we went to Iluna Basque. Similar crisis in the Ladies’, but, unlike Spec’s, it was more serious and the waiters didn’t want to deal with it. Reportedly she had to use her feminine wiles to get access to the employee’s bathroom in the adjoining cafe, where there were “boxes and boxes of Naked Juice for the taking.” She didn’t of course. As if!
*sorry for no photo- my camera is in intensive care- not that you’d want any visuals for that story, either!

taqueria at night

Originally uploaded by Liz Henry.

Driving home late at night & realizing I haven’t eaten all day and there’s nothing good in the house that would take less than 20 minutes to cook, and then like some kind of holy vision, the gleaming shiny Taqueria El Grullense appeared. Oh! Yummy! It was only $1.25 per chicken taco, with salsa, lemon, and chips; the chicken is always tasty, tender, non-gristly, on freshly made tiny corn tortillas. There’s something touchingly homey about the way you get your tacos on a cheap paper plate covered in foil.

This El Grullense is the best one in Redwood City, next to the “Vibes” head shop on El Camino. (Don’t confuse it with the one on the other side of El Camino a few blocks away. Fatal mistake.) Anyone following in the footsteps of Bill Addison (85 different taquerias in 10 weeks!) should start here, in the big parking lot behind the bus stop, where everything is so cheap delicious.

One of my favoritest local photographers Thomas Hawk has been collecting Flickr tips for a while, and in his latest post he rounds up his top ten favorite Flickr hacks (and links to the posts containing all his other excellent tips). Thank you Thomas — this is an invaluable resource. Of what he listed, I particularly love Moo Cards (I just got mine last week, best business cards ever), and was very interested to learn about jUploadr which I’ll try next time I have a big batch to foist on my contacts…

Link: Top 10 Hacks on Flickr (thomashawk.com, via Tailrank)

Long a fave of locals in line seeking butter laden pastry on Saturday morns, SF’s Tartine Bakery on Guerrero St will no doubt only be getting more crowded now that the NY Times travel section has discovered the joint…

See the link for the profile in this Sunday’s edition

The San Francisco Independent Film Festival is just around the corner. The annual pre-opening night/benefit party at the Rickshaw Stop at 155 Fell is on Saturday night, gearing up the local festival goers for the inevitable two week long party that starts on February 8th. This will be the ninth annual Indiefest. In a town literally brimming with successful film festivals, this is the granddaddy of them all.

Laura Dern in INLAND EMPIRE

Opening night starts with Laura Dern starring in the latest offering from film artiste David Lynch called INLAND EMPIRE. As usual, the festival includes a good smattering from my favorite genre (horror!) with offerings like NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH and S&MAN. There will be plenty of fare for the more artsy types out there, including an intriguing film called GREEN MIND, METAL BATS. I got to see this movie at a press junket last week, and as usual it was a film that made me realize there’s more out there than my self-made horror ghetto. It makes me happy that we have this festival in San Francisco, because without it very few of these films would have a chance to be seen by the general public.

Of course, there are some films that will go on to notoriety and you’ll get bragging rights on those films to all your friends as well. In the past Indiefest has been responsible for premiering films like BUBBA HO TEP. The closing film this year is FIDO, a wonderful post apocalyptic tale set in the 50’s featuring zombies as housepets and starring Carrie Ann Moss (THE MATRIX). I’m pretty sure everyone will be hearing about some of these films, and if you attend you can tell them that you saw it first at the SF Indiefest.

San Francisco Indiefest
http://www.sfindie.com
February 8th-20th
Benefit at the Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, 8pm on January 27th.

I’ve enjoyed these in the past, but last Wednesday’s Yelp party at SupperClub was a special kind of disaster. For funny wrap-ups — far more well-written than mine!– check out Yelper’s own renditions of the night. My favorite tidbits:

from laura b:

“Dude. A guy who lived in my dorm at NYU is a waiter here. That makes me sad. How do you go from promising star in one of the best film schools in the country to delivering jello custard cups wearing nothing but spandex short shorts and cat face paint?

”

to: carla d (thanks Lauren for the tip)

“Thank you Nish and the rest of the yelp staff for having a great concept in mind when organizing this event. It must have been stressful for you when it started sucking so much ass. ”

Sigh. The big issue in my mind was that the tiny cocktail area was full of all of the attendees of the event, while the big club and dinner area was reserved for the diners- Yelp Elite, but of those the % that decided to pay for dinner- so it was a non-fire-code situation of alarming claustrophobia. We ended up leaving for coffee with the hope of returning, but then ended up just bailing. So some amusing reading, and if you stayed in that night, you made the right call.