For $25 learn the secrets of taking earthy, erotic, naughty, provocative, or whatever suggestive pics you would like of yourself or a friend.

This happens tonight at 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM ~ Get your tickets now at Brown Paper Tickets.

Sets, props, a few cameras, and champagne provided – please bring your favorite cameras, outfits, and props to be included in your photos…

Femina Potens Art Gallery
2199 Market St.
San Francisco, CA 94114

Show You Mine, Show Me Yours: Modern Porn & Pinup Photography Workshop with Courtney Trouble: June 13th

"Double Exposure" from a painting by Homer Ansley

Shot in San Francisco

Curator Pete Gowdy* and Oddball Films* will share vintage 16mm films shot in San Francisco:

San Francisco Queen of the West ~ 1947
Kodachrome Tour of the City ~ 1947
San Francisco Ageless Cable Cars ~ 1950
Kodachrome documentary cable car
Blackie, Wonder Horse, Swims Golden Gate ~ 1938 B+W
1970′s News Outtakes ~ Outrageous nightclub scenes and Mission District Lowriders
Film shot on location at Playland At The Beach
Jefferson Airplane ~Tony Bennett & Judy Garland ~ Drag Legend Charles Pierce ~ Carol Doda

Date: Friday, May 7, 2010 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00

> RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117

* Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave. A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

* Oddballball Films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

Carlos Santana at SFO

In January of ’09 I spotted Santana at SFO near a baggage carousel. Without hesitation I walked up to him. Handing him a Metblogs card I asked, “What would you like our readers to know?’ Graciously he spent time talking with me. I learned of his commitment to children, and that Carlos and his family established “The Milagro Foundation”.

On Thursday, March 18, 2010 Mayor Gavin Newsom will present Carlos Santana with the Mayor’s Art Award: “Carlos Santana is without a doubt one of San Francisco’s most beloved icons,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom. “When he burst onto the scene with his extraordinary new sound he solidified San Francisco’s position as one of the main stages in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. His music transcends not only musical genres, but also cultural, geographical and political boundaries, and he has brought millions of people together through his art. He is also an artist who gives back to his community. It is my great honor to present the 2010 Mayor’s Art Award to Carlos Santana for his commitment to improving the lives of others and for his tremendous contributions to music.”

Unfortunately, the event which is sponsored by the San Francisco Examiner is private. I believe that the city missed an opportunity. By opening the event to the public some serious money could have been raised – possibly for Mr. Santana’s foundation.

Santana

The Milagro Foundation (with sound)

Supernatural Santana: A Trip Through The Hits

In other fundraising news, have you seen Kickstarter? People put their project proposals online and ask people to donate small sums. Projects range from the artistic (films, books, other art projects) to small businesses like these three women starting a cake bakery. And your donation is only accepted if the whole project is supported by tens or dozens of people and reaches its fundraising goal. What’s really fun about Kickstarter is that it combines the thrill of internet shopping with the thrill of helping others. Cool idea!

Two events which should be different:

The Street Food Street Fest, which will happen Saturday from 11 to 7 on Folsom St. between 25th and 26th. Why there? It’s the block where you’ll find La Cocina Community Kitchen, a four year old nonprofit business that incubates community food-oriented businesses run largely by immigrant women. Among the food vendors will be Sabores del Sur and Laiola.

On Saturday and Sunday, visit the San Francisco Zine Fest from 11 to 6, at the Hall of Flowers (known also as the County Fair Building) off Lincoln Way and 9th Avenue in Golden Gate Park. Not just an exhibition, the event features panels of all kinds for DIY publishers, journalists and artists. Admission to the whole event is FREE.

Fans trade vinyl, CDs, 8-track tapes for all I know (hey, they’re making a resurgence). Admission to the main event from 10 a.m. to 3 pm is $3, but if you want to beat everyone else, get there early, and trade with the real players, show up between 6 and 10 a.m. and pay $20. All proceeds go to keeping the great station on the air.

Courtesy Thomas Hawk — The work of five East Bay photographers appears in a show of pictures of East Bay neon signs at the Fingado Art Gallery in El Cerrito. The opening reception is Friday, July 10 from 7-9.

Savannah Knoop (pictured at right in 2007 with erstwhile JT LeRoy writer Laura Albert), who for several years played the role of JT LeRoy in public — as seen here, where she is referred to as “Trannie to the Stars” — will appear as herself in the monthly RADAR reading series Tuesday at 6:00 pm at the San Francisco Public Library. Knoop, a fashion designer, is the author of “Girl Boy Girl,” a memoir about the hoax. (“Knoop” means “knot” in Dutch, by the way, a suitable name for someone with a tangled identity.)

Also appearing is Meliza Bañales, who also designs clothing in addition to being a writer, filmmaker and performance artist, and Chelsea Starr, ditto. These are the kind of people for whom the Bay Area queer arts scene was invented; and if it didn’t already exist, they would invent it. Produced by Michelle Tea (who else?), the reading will be at 6:00 pm at the SF Public Library Main Branch [map].

Unless there is a riot following the Prop. 8 decision by the California Supreme Court.

This morning I went to my favorite café, Progressive Grounds at 21st and Bryant. As I sat there reading The Savage Detectives I became aware of a woman with a braying voice having a loud phone conversation — unusual at that café. “I’m twenty-six,” she was saying. “I’ve got long hair, almost down to my ass. I’m 36 double-D. I’m real pretty, I work at Centerfolds…”

I looked up. The speaker was a frankly ugly woman with thin, straight shoulder-length hair. She was in her mid-30s at least, fat, and dressed like a Capp St. hooker in a dirty pinkish party dress and a bright pink puffy jacket. She had on weird hookerish tinted glasses and high-heeled shoes, and she was saying “I just got off work at 4:00 a.m. Yeah, I have pictures on disk that I can send you. Well, what are you looking for? No, I don’t have a cell phone camera. Well, why is that important?”

Then the party she was talking to apparently hung up. The woman went to the counter and ordered a complicated vanilla latte with lots of whipped cream. (The staff at the café treated her with as much respect and politeness as they treat everyone, I noticed. Did I say I really like that café?) Then she took her drink back to the table and, with her finger on an advertisement in the back pages of the SF Weekly, phoned another potential employer.

I was thinking two things at the same time: She is atrocious, but also, she is awesome. She had probably never been pretty. Her voice sounded like the dregs at the bottom of a bottle of beer. But she was working that camera-less mobile phone and lying up one side and down the other about how gorgeous she was. What was the point? What were people going to say when she actually showed up at whatever strip club or massage parlor she was calling? Did she look in the mirror and see herself as she described herself? And how much of the way we all present ourselves is mostly bluff and squinting in the mirror and hoping that other people never call us on it?

After the second phone call she checked her messages, collected her things, and departed.