Nightlife & Entertainment BOB Photo Gallery
Open wide
By Michelle Tea
WHEN I WHIMSICALLY fled to San Francisco in the early '90s, I was delighted to find a city going bonkers over poetry. An eclectic mishmash of writers whose common denominator was enrollment in that school of hard knocks known as "the street" – and a disdain for its antithesis, that gloomy, creativity-slaying monster "the academy" – were congregating nightly in bars throughout the Mission District and, for all I know, beyond. An ambitious (some thought deluded) few hoped to get famous, with MTV putting Nuyoricans like Maggie Estep on television and Perry Farrell giving poets the chance to be totally humiliated and whacked with tomatoes onstage at Lollapalooza. Most were happy to have found a community – and a town so free from commercial competition that it allowed independent voices organic, uncompromised growth. Sure, "success" might have helped us with food and rent, but rents were cheaper then, and Food Not Bombs had so many bagels to get rid of, you could fill your stomach and still have some left over to throw at the cops. What San Francisco poets had was a larger sustenance: integrity.
The dot-com bomb slashed a deep gash in our quality of life. Poets got evicted; they split for cheaper pastures. The seemingly endless flow of working-class writers into San Francisco tapered off as our city's outrageous rents started making national news.
We lost our venues: The Chameleon, where Bucky Sinister MCed a notoriously rowdy open mic (on one occasion he was forced to summon the police to break up a poet-folksinger rumble). The Paradise Lounge, where Manic D Press publisher Jenn Joseph wryly commanded an open mic that, at an apex of popular interest in poetry, had Sean Penn emoting into the microphone. The CoCo Club, home to all sorts of ladycentric events. The all-ages Bearded Lady, at one time the focus of writerly dyke life in San Francisco. It was enough to make a poet cry, not that it takes much.
But our city is a Gemini, a fickle city, and if you don't like the direction it's heading in, you can sit tight and wait for the tides – economic, creative, meteorological – to turn. And they now seem to be swelling toward an abundance of things underground and literary. Attempting to even the score for what we've lost, new lit venues have cropped up, creating a rejuvenated spoken word scene taking place largely outside the traditional bars.
Show up at the brand-new, esoterically named Femina Potens art space on South Van Ness Avenue and you might find yourself crashing an ejaculation workshop for ladies hoping to root out their G-spot, an anarchist crochet circle where scarves are knitted and revolutions plotted, or a performance open mic featuring sexologist Carol Queen – all taking place against the backdrop of Annie Sprinkle's glittered titprints. Founded by Ohio expat Tina Butcher, the one-room art space is dedicated, according to the mission statement, "to bringing together women and transgender artists in the Bay Area to perform, create, collaborate, and show their work ... knowing that they won't have to explain themselves or feel censored by an overwhelming male presence that dominates most of our society." Having recently braved a hip-hop open mic at the Last Day Saloon, where I watched a host of Eminem wanna-bes and exactly zero females hurl typical but nonetheless painful antiqueer, antigirl raps at the crowd, I think the existence of Femina Potens is a crucial bit of justice.
And on the third Sunday afternoon of each month, deep inside the bright yellow basement space Hyena Playhouse, you'll find Hubbub, a queer spoken word open mic hosted by Bay Area homo community hero Larry Bob, creator of seminal queer zine Holy Titclamps and Internet social calendar Queer Stuff to Do. "I wanted to be able to showcase people who I think are doing interesting writing, and to introduce [writers] who may not have been aware of each other," Larry Bob explains. Recent features have included novelist Alvin Orloff, slam poet Shailja Patel, and the accomplished Red Jordan Arobateau. The event didn't wind up in a basement by accident: "I wanted to make sure to do Hubbub in an all-ages space," he says, "since so many open mics are in bars. I wanted to be able to have readers and their friends of whatever age come to the event."
Of course, some of you may need a shot of liquid courage before expressing your deep, dark secrets to a crowd of strangers (or worse, a crowd of those you've slept with, or have tried to sleep with, or can't remember sleeping with). For you, there's K'vetch, the city's longest-running queer open mic, first Sundays at Sadie's Flying Elephant. Here the Pabst flows cheaply, and entertainment is guaranteed in the between-poet banter of hilariously deadpan Tara Jepsen and the spastic clowning of Lynn Breedlove, who co-MC the monthly extravaganza. You don't have to be a homo to rock the mic, but you'd better be comfy hobnobbing with trannies, butt-boys, and bulldaggers. Another barroom bard-stop is B.A.R.K., Monday nights at Jezebel's Joint. There, open mic hopefuls pick a number and cross their fingers, hoping the giant, roulette-style Wheel of Poets will land on it. Knowing shy poets sometimes need a bribe to face the mic, B.A.R.K. promoters present each reader with a prize, such as a marshmallow Peep or a tiny Iraqi flag.
Host to all sorts of arts events, Dolores Park Cafe is perhaps the perfect location for an open mic, as it offers beer for the boozers, coffee for the caffeine-addled, and an all-ages situation that encourages input from teens as well as jaded, burnt-out older folks. A recent addition to the café calendar is Oral Fixation, a spoken word open mic that takes place the third Friday of every other month (oh, the good old days when these things had a simple once-a-week schedule). Host Erin Oh says the theme is satisfying your own oral fixation: "You can read, you can rant, and everyone gets lollipops." Past features have included Storm Florez and Thea Hillman, and though anyone's welcome, the event tends to draw predominantly queer and female crowds.
Because many street writers learn how to write and perform at open mics, at these places you often have to sit through some rather raw, unpolished pieces by folks who haven't yet found their voice. Street poets cut their teeth in public, growing as artists before your eyes. "The geography of open mics creates a literary history from the bottom up," says activist-novelist Peter Plate, who's on the advisory board of Litquake, the city's only comprehensive literary festival, happening in September at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Responsible for bringing righteous youth poetry brigade Youth Speaks to last year's fest, Plate intends to make sure street poets are found among the big Bay Area names bound to be included.
"Without individual artists having places to experiment at the microphone, the city's lit can't grow and get stronger," Plate says, and he knows whereof he speaks, having gotten his own literary legs taking the stage before punk bands. "That was a sustained open mic scenario. If people didn't like you, you'd get a bottle thrown at you. You learned not to be false with your words, false with your approach."
And just as punk catalyzed his early voice, so do our present, repoliticized times electrify today's new writers. "The streets, the tumult, the politics, the demonstrations, the war abroad and at home – it's to the street every time, not the academy," Plate says. "With the emergence of things like Gay Shame, we see a new street politics that creates a new semiotics. The academy borrows from the street."
Michelle Tea is a San Francisco writer and performer. She is the author of The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America, Valencia, and The Chelsea Whistle.
Open wide
By Michelle Tea
WHEN I WHIMSICALLY fled to San Francisco in the early '90s, I was delighted to find a city going bonkers over poetry. An eclectic mishmash of writers whose common denominator was enrollment in that school of hard knocks known as "the street" – and a disdain for its antithesis, that gloomy, creativity-slaying monster "the academy" – were congregating nightly in bars throughout the Mission District and, for all I know, beyond. An ambitious (some thought deluded) few hoped to get famous, with MTV putting Nuyoricans like Maggie Estep on television and Perry Farrell giving poets the chance to be totally humiliated and whacked with tomatoes onstage at Lollapalooza. Most were happy to have found a community – and a town so free from commercial competition that it allowed independent voices organic, uncompromised growth. Sure, "success" might have helped us with food and rent, but rents were cheaper then, and Food Not Bombs had so many bagels to get rid of, you could fill your stomach and still have some left over to throw at the cops. What San Francisco poets had was a larger sustenance: integrity.
The dot-com bomb slashed a deep gash in our quality of life. Poets got evicted; they split for cheaper pastures. The seemingly endless flow of working-class writers into San Francisco tapered off as our city's outrageous rents started making national news.
We lost our venues: The Chameleon, where Bucky Sinister MCed a notoriously rowdy open mic (on one occasion he was forced to summon the police to break up a poet-folksinger rumble). The Paradise Lounge, where Manic D Press publisher Jenn Joseph wryly commanded an open mic that, at an apex of popular interest in poetry, had Sean Penn emoting into the microphone. The CoCo Club, home to all sorts of ladycentric events. The all-ages Bearded Lady, at one time the focus of writerly dyke life in San Francisco. It was enough to make a poet cry, not that it takes much.
But our city is a Gemini, a fickle city, and if you don't like the direction it's heading in, you can sit tight and wait for the tides – economic, creative, meteorological – to turn. And they now seem to be swelling toward an abundance of things underground and literary. Attempting to even the score for what we've lost, new lit venues have cropped up, creating a rejuvenated spoken word scene taking place largely outside the traditional bars.
Show up at the brand-new, esoterically named Femina Potens art space on South Van Ness Avenue and you might find yourself crashing an ejaculation workshop for ladies hoping to root out their G-spot, an anarchist crochet circle where scarves are knitted and revolutions plotted, or a performance open mic featuring sexologist Carol Queen – all taking place against the backdrop of Annie Sprinkle's glittered titprints. Founded by Ohio expat Tina Butcher, the one-room art space is dedicated, according to the mission statement, "to bringing together women and transgender artists in the Bay Area to perform, create, collaborate, and show their work ... knowing that they won't have to explain themselves or feel censored by an overwhelming male presence that dominates most of our society." Having recently braved a hip-hop open mic at the Last Day Saloon, where I watched a host of Eminem wanna-bes and exactly zero females hurl typical but nonetheless painful antiqueer, antigirl raps at the crowd, I think the existence of Femina Potens is a crucial bit of justice.
And on the third Sunday afternoon of each month, deep inside the bright yellow basement space Hyena Playhouse, you'll find Hubbub, a queer spoken word open mic hosted by Bay Area homo community hero Larry Bob, creator of seminal queer zine Holy Titclamps and Internet social calendar Queer Stuff to Do. "I wanted to be able to showcase people who I think are doing interesting writing, and to introduce [writers] who may not have been aware of each other," Larry Bob explains. Recent features have included novelist Alvin Orloff, slam poet Shailja Patel, and the accomplished Red Jordan Arobateau. The event didn't wind up in a basement by accident: "I wanted to make sure to do Hubbub in an all-ages space," he says, "since so many open mics are in bars. I wanted to be able to have readers and their friends of whatever age come to the event."
Of course, some of you may need a shot of liquid courage before expressing your deep, dark secrets to a crowd of strangers (or worse, a crowd of those you've slept with, or have tried to sleep with, or can't remember sleeping with). For you, there's K'vetch, the city's longest-running queer open mic, first Sundays at Sadie's Flying Elephant. Here the Pabst flows cheaply, and entertainment is guaranteed in the between-poet banter of hilariously deadpan Tara Jepsen and the spastic clowning of Lynn Breedlove, who co-MC the monthly extravaganza. You don't have to be a homo to rock the mic, but you'd better be comfy hobnobbing with trannies, butt-boys, and bulldaggers. Another barroom bard-stop is B.A.R.K., Monday nights at Jezebel's Joint. There, open mic hopefuls pick a number and cross their fingers, hoping the giant, roulette-style Wheel of Poets will land on it. Knowing shy poets sometimes need a bribe to face the mic, B.A.R.K. promoters present each reader with a prize, such as a marshmallow Peep or a tiny Iraqi flag.
Host to all sorts of arts events, Dolores Park Cafe is perhaps the perfect location for an open mic, as it offers beer for the boozers, coffee for the caffeine-addled, and an all-ages situation that encourages input from teens as well as jaded, burnt-out older folks. A recent addition to the café calendar is Oral Fixation, a spoken word open mic that takes place the third Friday of every other month (oh, the good old days when these things had a simple once-a-week schedule). Host Erin Oh says the theme is satisfying your own oral fixation: "You can read, you can rant, and everyone gets lollipops." Past features have included Storm Florez and Thea Hillman, and though anyone's welcome, the event tends to draw predominantly queer and female crowds.
Because many street writers learn how to write and perform at open mics, at these places you often have to sit through some rather raw, unpolished pieces by folks who haven't yet found their voice. Street poets cut their teeth in public, growing as artists before your eyes. "The geography of open mics creates a literary history from the bottom up," says activist-novelist Peter Plate, who's on the advisory board of Litquake, the city's only comprehensive literary festival, happening in September at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Responsible for bringing righteous youth poetry brigade Youth Speaks to last year's fest, Plate intends to make sure street poets are found among the big Bay Area names bound to be included.
"Without individual artists having places to experiment at the microphone, the city's lit can't grow and get stronger," Plate says, and he knows whereof he speaks, having gotten his own literary legs taking the stage before punk bands. "That was a sustained open mic scenario. If people didn't like you, you'd get a bottle thrown at you. You learned not to be false with your words, false with your approach."
And just as punk catalyzed his early voice, so do our present, repoliticized times electrify today's new writers. "The streets, the tumult, the politics, the demonstrations, the war abroad and at home – it's to the street every time, not the academy," Plate says. "With the emergence of things like Gay Shame, we see a new street politics that creates a new semiotics. The academy borrows from the street."
Michelle Tea is a San Francisco writer and performer. She is the author of The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America, Valencia, and The Chelsea Whistle.
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