Bay Area Lucid

Mammaries go to the How Weird Street Fair

2006-05-09T00:09:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 7th, was the one fair I have loyalty to. The one on Howard Street, in the Soma district, in which most folks come dressed up pretty freakin weird. But this year, I noticed the trend is to move away from weirdness, even away from extreme fetish, and into just looking pretty darn good. So, my clothes apparently fit into the looking good category, while my prop and head gear was definitely on the weird side.

I wore my long platinum bubbly wig and my large falsies, which you, dear readers, have seen before in those posts, but not together. I put the falsies around my head like a headband, sticking up in their shocking nakedness.

I didn’t wear them on the way there so as to avoid offending any little children. When I was close to Howard street, I pulled them out of my bag, and looked over and right in front of me was a baby being pushed in a buggy. She was looking at me like: Wow! I can’t wait til my mama has that happen to HER!

People driving by raised their eyebrows and laughed as I transformed myself, tying on the falsies. I took out my strange doll with a mask and feather sticking out of it, and carried it. I carried it for a long time, but never once did anyone look down at it or comment on it. That just added to my playful point about some people seeing breasts when they see me, and not my other characteristics. Not looking anywhere where the breasts will be out of peripheral vision.

It is endlessly entertaining to see reactions, in that type environment, to breasts on the head. In the Sunset District, no one would flinch. No one would change his expression at all. I recommend How Weird because, there, they cracked up and pointed me out to friends, who then came over and posed with me for the camera, as I tweaked my nipples on my head. Then, they would grab them themselves. Passersby would lick them for the camera. I had my picture taken hundreds of times and of course, I have none of them. It’s fun to provide such luxurious humor for each other amongst the cameras of the weird clan. It’s a relief. It’s therapy. How Weird

The people I met that I spent substantial time with, however, barely mentioned my upward mammaries, and instead, did free, improvisational psychic healing work for me. They both picked up on similar things. It was comforting to meet people who, like me, work with intense, transformative energies for others. They didn’t have booths. They were free agents of change in a setting in which miraculous, bizarre, amazing things could occur.

There was a mandala of sod for people to sit on and relax. This year, the fair was part of ArtSFest, which is enlivening itself, with Brad Nye enthusiastically plunging into new artistic territory. San Francisco arts communities are coming together. The fair was originated by the CCC. Brad Olson, one of the founding members, began CCC publishing, which you can read about here. CCC Publishing and the How Weird Fair

Unfortunately, the Anon Salon afterparty was cancelled, and the afterparty moved to Mighty instead, becoming a traditional club scene. Anon Salon events are promoted by Mark Petrackis’s Party/Science blog in which he spoke recently about our culture in San Francisco in which we all dress up regularly in costumes, and said “How do we take our freaky edge talents and integrate them with others who are equally freaky and similarly edgy? How do we transform ourselves from the largely solo players we have been in our old life into the ensemble players we want to be in our new life?” Party Science

He has a new blog, Telecircus 2,in which he also recently posted some ideas about our San Francisco style freaky cultural scene, with the technologies that make for fascinating explorations of what is possible in creative parties. It is the follow up to his orignal site that was the first home to Anon Salon, Burning Man, and others. In it, he says, “Concurrently, we are seeing a dramatic culture-shift in the variety of ways that "user-generated media" is being created and distributed.

In many ways, it's a whole new ballgame for alternative sensibilities who are committed to the techniques of networked collaboration.”

Being part of the unique, Burner influenced art scene in San Francisco is not about putting paintings on the wall. It’s about dressing up in creative costumes week after week, and playing with friends, participating in multimedia collaborations, extravagence, absurdity, spirituality, and irreverence. What more can we do to push artistic parties even further? Let’s all put our heads together on this. And I have learned that having breasts on your head makes doing so more fun.

by Tantra Bensko
www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko

The Finch Mob Arts Collective

2006-05-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

A new phenomenon is aflutter. A group of innovative artists and goofy theatrical inventors have been working together for a good while and now are focusing on group exhibitions and performances, with other artists invited as well. Will Chase, who also curated the recent Spectra Ball, and curated the Finch Mob show at a home turned into a temporary gallery, says their art falls in between commercial and noncommercial. They are calling for breaking down barriers that keep us from using our creativity to foster change in the world. Here here!

An extraordinary thing is occuring here, as they are not only thinking in terms of visual art, but guerilla art, silent movies, civic outreach, and mayhem.

I attended their gallery opening on the 29th. I was moved by the spiritual power of a large painting of a heart and its energies, painted by a circussy woman named Bonnie, or Bunnie, Reiss. I could stare at it for a long time, letting it expand my openness, feeling as if my own heart ckakra could reach the size of the painting.

The various circus performer types were doing contact improve and casually playing with difficult moves, as people cheered. I later discovered more about two Finch Mob participants through a CD of a travelling conceptual, twisted, idiotically brilliant circus by Ben Turner and Dattner that travelled through the country, performing in 20 cities in double that amount of time, making audiences into temporary circus performers, such as the Amazing Moderately Flexable Man. The lithe, ridiculously magnetic Ben Turner was adorable in a variety of roles such as the Self Taming Lion Man, and the Emotional Escape Artist. Dattner and Ben made use of the traditional circus obnoxious overacting and relentless flamboyant level of excitement, but their travelling circus was anything but conventional.

At the Finch Mob opening, I learned something new about fire, from the beautiful photos of Gary Wilson, capturing individual licks of fire that are intensely convuluted and striking. Who would guess flames looked like that?

An Immaculada painting by Susan Montana Murdoch explored the relationship between the Catholic imagery and the original Mexian imagery it was replacing, and using in order to take over the minds of the people they were conquering. Not enough attention is brought in art to the serpent religions and how they have always mutated throughout cultures. This painting is a beautiful example of how compelling the archetype can be made.

There was a one of a kind performance by Tim Barsky, who for many years has pioneered new musical territory by playing his alto silver flute while beatboxing. Alto silver flutes are not common instruments to begin with, and look surreal, as if blown on by Salvatore Dali, as they behave like normal flutes until the suddenly bend around to look back at their player. A very personable man, he has a true musician's passion for creating something new, with excitement. An educator, and storyteller, Tim has a lot of other projects that involve the community, such as the Vowel Movement, bringing together Bay Area beatboxers, and and Everyday Theatre, combining Jewish folklore and the hip hop cuture, and a play called As in Sleep. A new play, Dreaming in the Firestorm, comes to the Oakland Theatre on June 17th. He showed me how he does a type of circular dreaming that goes so far as to isolate each nostril as well as breathing at the same time through the mouth, so the flow of air is continuously going in three channells, to make sounds like multiple instruments. His performance brought energy to the already energized crowd, as he slapped the flute, played chords on it while humming, beatboxing,

Like the dream I always want to have, I was shown the alleyway down below, where people were playing the strange instrument in the narrow alley. It was based on the back of a piano which was splayed against the wall, but the strings went on and on, criss crossing over each other, with various levels of the wooden surface to strike powerfully. We played it with screwdrivers, which worked the best, keys, cups, which were not as successful, fingers rubbed with resin. Collaborating, picking up playful, surprising mini rhythms with them and and playing off of each others' constantly changing sounds was delightful. This instrument was created by brothers Chris and Marcus Guillard.

Check out the Finch Mob website to keep up with future shows and acts of mayhem mixed with genius.

by Tantra Bensko (www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko)

www.finchmob.com
www.mindfullight.com--will later have images of flames. Gary Wilson's site
www.timbarsky.com
www.marcusguillard.com
www.monkpunk.org--Dattner's site
www.susanmurdoch.com
www.bunniedesigns.com

The Art of Consciousness and the Sound of Sexual Confidence

2006-04-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

Last night was the opening at the Inner Sunset cultural mecca, the Canvas Gallery for a show called Combined Weight, made up of artists working for Pixar. I felt the most interesting work at the show was by Liz Amini-Holmes. She has been doing illustrations for some poetry at www.madhattersreview.com, where I am the art director, and find the artists to illustrate the pieces, and work with them on that process. Liz went so far as to illustrate not only each poem, but each stanza. That is true artistic passion. Some of the works created for our next issue, due online May 15th, were included in her large display of art at the Canvas. The show continues through May 22nd.

Her art at the show holds together extremely well as a whole, and makes a statement about consciousness. Almost every piece features a face,often disconnected from a body. Each face is transformed by its relationship to its surroundings. The faces represent consciousness in a non linear relationship with emotion, concept, personality, situation, dreams, the physical world around it, and life itself. Consciousness is about free association, symbols, fragments and collages of different feelings and memories, not simple, tangible straight forward local, chronological, simple, direct relationships. This is certainly how I approach life, and I can identify with her work strongly. Her images are acrylic, or giclees made from acrylics, very reasonably priced in their fine frames, and go together as a set or seperately.

There are a few images that are not faces, but the context makes them seem almost like they are. She has a few images of trees, and they seem to represent the consciousness of the trees as personalities. Only a couple include bodies, one being a distortion of the Red Riding Hood story, which is absolutely beautiful, a must see for anyone interested in that evocative fairy tale.

Also last night was the annual benefit for AIDS Lifecycle at Thee Parkside, at 17th and Wisconsin. There was a lovely mobile kissing booth with a girl sporting it whose sexy punk outfit included a fetching gashed mesh top. Sponsers had donated goodies such as tickets to Burning Man and a guitar, for the silent auction. A large contingency of the crowd was creatively gender bending, and they felt freer to express themselves more as the music warmed their blood during the course of the evening.

The Doormats had energy, and did a nice cover song at the end, which is something I would like to see them do more of. Their own music has a relentless similar casual frenetic feel, the rhythm rarely varying, always intense but the reason for its intensity was hard to discern. When they did vary the rhythm at the beginning or ending of a song, it was a relief. Their sound needed more space, as, though the sound system dynamics was not up to the usual Parkside quality last night, making it hard to tell how they would sound otherwise, the band itself seemed to also have an overkill of noise that blended together too mushily.

Rubber Side Down was more dancable, the lead singer being charmingly personable, so he drew attention subtly to the likability of this professional sounding band that moves gracefully between a cohesive variety of sounds. Some of their songs have been used in TV shows, so they have a promising career. Check out their Indie Label CD, American Romantic.

The headline band was Candy From Strangers, a hard pop rock, glam punk assault on boredom if there ever was one. Ruby Jordan, the tough, gutsy, pleasure lovin singer projects her complete immersion in life, her total oneness with her feelings, her openess to all that is around her, and her willingness to share her self with her band and her audience in a way that picks up the excitement level of living itself. While wearing stilleto heeled black boots, she manages to still come across as strong and stable, a force to be reckoned with. She is no trembling flower of a girl, but full of beautiful testosterone and panache, appealing to all sexes, bringing out their own desire to release inhibitions, to accept their hedonism, to celebrate the power of woman. Her moves were intimate, as she would crouch on the floor, bend across the stage, accentuate not so much just her undeniable beauty as her own love for sexual freedom of expression, confidence, and range. When she would move into the crowd, coming close to audience members, her eyes were wickedly impish, her smile conspiratorial, her energy scintillating.

She is balanced perfectly by Pauli Gray, lead guitarist and songwriter, the epitome of the rock star whose been around, whose played with the greats to large crowds of adoring fans. He looks like Ron Wood in a dream of being the lead singer with the dynamism and sex appeal of Mick. His moves are classic, exagerated, and he often makes them with a sense of irony, winking and grinning, including the audience as he sees them get what the song is doing, get his moves, dance up the band. His sound is searing, intense.

Jaimie Muntner plays guitar primarily, wearing his signature black cowboy hat, a consumate musician more than showman, just like Ricky Ross, the drummer, as they both dispense of ego issues and let Ruby and Pauli take center state. These two are solid team members, providing a stable cohesiveness for the band that keeps it drama free and able to tour from coast to coast, record new CD's, their latest being CatButt Tattoo. At Thee Parkside last night, they were joined for awhile by Paula, their bassist who moved on, and Chumley, who may be their new member. The band has been playing together since 99, with some changes in members along.

They can be heard on KFOG radio, so call in with requests if you feel in a tough, sexy mood. They are working on a new CD, called Bad Girlfriend, with Chris Dugan, who works with Green Day. This should lead to even more popularity for this, San Francisco's Sexiest Band.

Catch Pauli tonight at the Dolores Park Cafe, and Candy from Strangers with Michael Graves at Cafe du Nord, Tuesday, May 11th, at a benefit to free the West Memphis Three.

by Tantra Bensko
www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko

http://www.thecanvasgallery.com/

http://www.candyfromstrangers.com/

Jumping Jesus and Hopping Bunnies Galore

2006-04-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

It's Easter season, darlings. The day Messiahs such as Tammuz, Mithras, as Jesus were reborn like the sun. Well, in San Francisco, it's time for over the top bunnies and bonnets, and various combinations of the two. As the Easter bunny started with the Saxon goddess, and her hare totem, it's appropriate that you will find probably more pagans and other non Christians than followers of the Bible at the annual Bunny Jam. And as Jesus was a hot, sexy stud, you will find more men with lipstick than straight men celebrating his rising at the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Easter shindig.

Saturday, all over the city, people's minds were scrambling for last minute sparks of brilliance about how to bring forth some new aspect of strange bunniness never seen before. Some visual bunny joke to embody, and create instant laughter all around them. People don't always understand what the San Francisco art scene is about. Being part of it is not necessarily having pictures hung from the walls of art galleries. It's knowing just the right nuance of how to costume up. What props to wear. What personae to get into. What improvisational monologues will provoke the most response. That is art. And the the main artists are the people who get the lay participants out to these events by providing entertainment that is guaranteed to be delightful, and good grounds for bliss and social connections and insights into one's personality never before encountered. In San Francisco, there are no spectators.

Last time I went, I was crucified Jesus bunny. Yeah.

All evening, the trains and busses were subjected to unexpected far out bunnies.
Bunny Jam is a tradition of pure goofiness, with performers like Nambla the Bunny, and Carrot Lewis, and with Hare Apparent Projections, and the Church of Harentology, you have to be prepared for full on immersion. This year, there were projections from the hilarious video, The Easter Bunny Hates You, in the VJ mix with cartoons and everything rabbity, while a bigger than life bunny danced on stage, with consumate costumite Steven Raspa stepping up onstage to emcee a little show of random bunnies showing off. I was one; I confess. Though no one seeing me there would know, I was Dream Bunny. All in white, including my carefully disintegrating fluffy tail, I wore slightly macabre white satiny white cloth fitted to my face, with eye holes gone off center, a pink nose, and a slit for my mouth that showed my teeth, the obligatory bunny ears, and a gauzy veil over top led to a ghostly, surreal image that was called Felliniesque. My turn at the mike, I asked the question: "Are we all dreaming? All the time?" Think about it.

The Bunny Jam was extra dreamlike with the immersion into the projections, music, bunnies on the balconies, huge stuffed bunnies, and the way things never look quite real when looked at through little holes in cloth. And through a white veil, in the dark. Who would guess how naturally psychedelic the combination could feel.

And just down the street was the Life Size Mousetrap, an ingenius contraption by the Cyclecide crew. Just walking a few blocks from one to the next felt very urban, industrial, dangerous. Bleak. Was it really something we were supposed to do alone? Would anyone be there? Had anyone else made that walk on Jerrold? Somewhere in between the two events was a 1000 dollar egg. I had imagined numerous people scouring it, but no, I saw nothing but the undersides of bridges, uneven concrete, puddles, mud, backs of things, restricted looking areas I wasn't sure I should be tresspassing on....And then, there it was, with bike carnival rides, people tooking around in wacked out bikes, and the usual sexy, hardass punk outfits--interspresed with people in big fluffy ears. Those cyclecide kids possess mechanical talents with junk and wheels that makes any evening with them seem like a very precise and explosive dream.

There was a giant rocking horse someone was riding, while other people stood behind a row of contraptions they set rubber chickens on, and kicked, catapulting them into the air, where the man on the rocking horse caught them.

And little time for real dreaming there was, with Easter Sunday right on its fluffy tail. Time for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence's 27th Annual Easter. Normally, it's in the park, but considering this has been the rainiest season in all of history, it ended up being in the Recreation Center in the Castro. There's something so lovable about the charitable Sisters, with their beards painted along with everything else on their faces, working with what they have to be what they are not, in the most charming ways. Racy, and humorous, these men in fabulous, colorful, unique nun's outfits, speaking in smooth, syrupy voices, saying the most irreverent things brings sanity to the holiday.

My easter bonnet was a green felt floppy hat with the best brand of large falsies that drag queens wear wrapped around the front of it. Red velvet, black and white spotted shiney cloth, pink and white gauze, many feathers, and lace completed the extravagence of it all. There was something addictive to wearing it in the Castro and having strangers on the street smile and complement me on it. Being gay feels so in, and being in with the in crowd is rewarded with men kissing both cheeks, moving seductively, playing with femininity and boldness, and bonding over the ridiculousness of it all. Like my bunny costume, my bonnet was a big hit, and I felt I had suceeded in being a true part of San Francisco once again, and felt a kind of ownership already of the holidays' repeated events. I was one with Easters, and could wink and speak of it warmly. No more feeling like an outsider, questioning the religions that celebrated dates with pagan stories going back to the beginning of history, but which the Christians were not supposed to know about. And I think most of us felt that bond, that sense of belonging. The creative inspiration to keep dreaming up new ways of reinterpreting our identity through costumery.

The Hunky Jesus contest had more contestants this year than before, so the preliminary run through was too quick for most of us to really get a handle on it. I was happy to see Krishna Bunny pay tribute to the Universal nature of the holiday. There was a very sexy female version of Jesus with a sack cloth, fishnets, and a dangling cigarette. One of the finalists was Blooming Jesus, a woman and her cross, covered in flowers. But it was clear that Jumping Jesus was the crowd pleaser, as he bounced around in the air, boing, boing, looking cut and tanned, with nice hair/crown of thorns combination that worked well together. Well done, Jumping Jesus. He gave many bendovers from all angles to the crowd in appreciation for winning.

Last time I went, I was Stip Tease Hunky Jesus, and I still run into people who remember me from that. I went topless, threw my tutu to the crowd, and did a stigmata strip tease, pulling my arm coverings back slowly, tauntingly, to reveal, and then hide, and then reveal my bloody centers of my palms. Mmm.... Then, I spanked myself with my crown of thorns. Yes, I had many little reminders of that on my buttocks for quite the while. We saviors must suffer for our art.

I felt lost when it was time to leave. I didn't want to take off my bonnet, and didn't want to be thrown to the humorless. I stayed around as long as I could, wandering aimlessly, before finally leaving, and still being cheered up by the many grins and comments on my boobie hat. I could do it. I was bold enough to wear the bonnet home on the Muni. The Castro district was very good to me. But as I put in the usual extra time that using the Muni Trip planner generally takes, because it is so often wrong, I found that the city became less welcoming of it as I took more trains and busses through the residential areas. Some districts, no one laughed at all, and I would get strained, pale, withered looks of disgust. Well, one, anyway. I took off my hat. I stuffed it in my bag. I became normal. The dismal glancer looked relieved. But she didn't win. No, I won't be withered. I am bunny. I am Jesus. I am love.

http://bunnyjam.com/
http://www.cyclecide.com/
http://www.thesisters.org/

Spectra Ball

2006-04-09T12:23:00.001-07:00

A young man in the arial troupe, Velocity Circus, gyrated gracefully in a round swing, lit with red, with red velvet and Gothic splendor with crimson walls, 30 hand painted backdrops, and a turn of the century pipe organ, as his backdrop, a whole ballet in one spot in space above us, like a pulsating fantasy of the imagination. His gestures were precisely chosen to embody a kind of beauty of spirit bonded with form that is rarely expressed uncensored in males in our harsher society. His movements gained sudden speed with the music's cresendo, and the audience was cheering him on with the grandeur of his athletics and verve. Our hearts were beating faster with his.
Then, on stage, Mr. Lucky, wearing a 1950's style grey suit, started crooning Moon River. Bizare.
This was the third annual Spectra Ball, the fund raiser for ArtSFest, displaying art pieces on the walls throughout the building, and some experimental installations tucked away.
The Magnetic Poets, with euphoric vocals by Carol Luna, who is know also for her exquisite video projections, were scintillating. They have even forformed "performed a global collaboration of artists from around the world. The event took place every night in Piazza Solferino prior to the medal ceremonies."
Painted arial Performance troupe Xeno was dreamlike, and the evening was ethnically exciting with vietmese Nguyen dancers, and vibrating performers from New Guinea who got people dancing.
The 1909 building has the reputation of being the best Scottish Rite temple architecture in the United States. Only in 1997 did the Regency Hotel take it over.

What a strange concept it was to be dancing and displaying my own art, called Aware and Beyond Illusion, in a building used to create theatrical illusions and presuamably, gather together some of the freemasons at the higher levels, which have carefully manipulated our entire global culture through secrecy. Our modern world has rescued art, which has been traditionally sponsered by the elite families to put across the desired world view. Instead, through the beauty of such events as these, we tap into our own feelings about reality, and dance them.

by Tantra Bensko
http://lucidvision.mosaicglobe.com

Do Not Try to Comprehend

2006-04-07T00:20:00.000-07:00

The art of Ocean Beach has grown its own, organic form.

If you walk along it on the rare clear night, you will see life forms along the beach, spaced a couple yards apart, that look terrestrial, or perhaps marine, or maybe it's alien. In the centers of the pods are fires, which are ringed by long, tall immobile shapes that form one unit altogether, which looks something like roots of old growth trees which grow so beautifully above ground and merge into the trunks. Or is it some kind of giant sea anemone?

If you walk along it in the daytime, you may notice that there are precisely drawn lines in the sand, rectangular shapes that extend around you. As you walk farther, you notice the creatively interlaced rectangles go as far as you can see in the sand, and that you are being caught in a kind of maze of interest. You find yourself drawn towards appears to be the center of it, as the rectangles become smaller and more integrated in that direction, and there is a man standing there, drawing. How many hours has it taken him to make this pattern that you are walking through while being careful not to step on the lines. The patterns are a kind of modern art, a la Mondrion, and you are freed to engage within it, the beach becoming the new canvas, the artist the new imp.

As you reach the street corner at Judah, you may see a poster on the telephone pole that says "Missing Person: missing from somewhere, that's for sure." Below is a full color photograph of a man playing the guitar. Below that it says: "Do Not Try to Comprehend." On the bench alongside the little restaurant, Java Beach, near the telephone pole, you will very often see the man in the picture, playing his guitar.

by Tantra Bensko
http://lucidvision.mosaicglobe.com

A holiday of Nonsense

2006-04-02T22:24:00.000-07:00

There’s something about waiting at the train stop with a dozen serious people standing around to make you feel slightly stupid. At least, when you’re wearing a platinum big hair wig, a wacked out pirate’s hat with a rose sticking out the front, your backpack inside your shirt, on your back, so you can’t actually get to it, and you are carrying a sign that says “Happy President’s Day!”. On April Fool’s Day. I started wondering if it were safe to carry a big sign making fun of the president, these days. Even people serving food to the homeless are tracked as terrorists. We are all supposed to dumb down and pretend the country is going along just fine. I remembered a teeshirt from my last April Fools’ Day parade: George Bush Loves Me. The epitome of a stupid remark. It warmed my heart as I tried to carry the message of playfulness to the masses, as the parade truly began throughout all the neighborhoods of San Francisco, as unsuspecting citizens were exposed to suspiciously bizarre looking people on their way to the financial district. When the police drove by, I turned my sign around.

No one during my whole train trip across town to the Pyramid Building for the Saint Stupid’s Day Parade cracked a smile. Was that I THAT unfunny? Are people so used to wackos here that they have gotten to be experts at politely ignoring people who are—different. I ached to gather with people who would laugh at me. And I wanted to laugh at them.

The computerized trip planner for the public transportation hadn’t been working for two days, and I’d spent hours trying to force it, so planning my Saint Stupid’s day out was messed up by human failure. Then, when I got there, I realized I was so stupid, I had screwed up on my camera, and couldn’t take pictures. Every moment was a painful photo op. Who was I to point my finger at Bush? I was suffering, suffering, I tell you. Stupidity hurts. It really hurts.

HA HA HA!! Happy President’s Day! HA HA HA! I’d made it. I was home, with my true kin. Ha Ha Ha! There was someone holding a blank sign. She saw me and started looking pointedly at her sign, a look of subtle insight coming into her face. I wondered what it said on the other side. “Oh,” she said, turning it. “Sorry. It’s upside down.”

A man wearing his hair in high pony tails was dancing with a Slinky. Next to him, I noticed a woman stuffing the strangest looking chicken I had ever seen into her purse. A man was wearing a Coors six pack box on his head. A bride was there totally dressed in bubble wrap. Three huge dog heads drove up beside us, from Doggie Diner, as immortalized in Zippy the Pinhead. And, very appropriately, someone was wearing a simulated TV which was mesmerizing me with a brainwashing, hypnotic spinner as I looked into it.

It was the 28th annual Saint Stupid’s Day Parade, a Cacophony Society wonder, a Dadaistic ritual of the Church of the Last Laugh. According to the church, all religions work through guilt and fear, and for that to work, we have to all be stupid. You’ve got to admit, religions have done a great job of manipulating the masses all along for their secret agenda of control. A sign last year said “God bless us and no one else” Being human, we carry the gene for gullible stupidity, so we might as well acknowledge it, rather than let it fester, and have a good laugh about the whole thing. The Church of the Last Laugh is “the world’s only pretty true religion.”

You probably can’t imagine how much fun it is to throw yourself fully into doing the secret handshake. You put your hand up, palm toward your partner, fold your thumb across your palm, slap hi four, an say “OW!!! We GOTTA change that!”

The pledge says it all: “I pledge allegiance to the illusion, and to the pyramid scheme, or which it stands. One species, in denial, with error and excess, by all.” It's exhilerating to actually shout the truth with others who see it, and it's absurdity.

There are traditional work day stations of the cross, throwing socks at the stock exchange, yelling "socks are up, knickers are down!", throwing pennies at the Bank of America. We sat down in the intersection, yelling “Down in the back!”. As we walked along, we chanted things like, the old standby, “Back to work!”. And, to accompaniment of drumming, “No more drumming!” and “No more chanting!”. Our destination was in North Beach which is not a beach, at Washington Square, which is neither square shaped nor on Washington Street, and has a statue of Benjamin Franklin, rather than Washington.

We ended up with a stupid talent show and music, as onlookers behind the fence were staring down at us. The famous Wavy Gravy was following a little dog around with his wooden fish on a leash, which was sniffing the dog’s butt. It was a classic moment. And without photos to remind me, I was struggling to remember the constant hilarious visions and sounds all around me, and feeling the limitations of the brain, as one funny thing after another drained out of mine. Here’s to stupidity! There was something therapeutic about celebrating absurdity, especially my own incompetence, rather than fighting it. Someone lent me his digital camera to use, and I took one picture, and then, voila, the camera went blank, as the battery had just died. When right there in front of me was a man who had egg beaters sticking out of his ears, a spoon plastered on his nose, and forks over his eyes.

I got a ride to the After After Party with a woman who said she would take me as long as she didn’t give birth first. She said she was four days overdue. Once, she started making suspiciously labor like sounds. I chaulked it up to April Fools. There were so many participants in the event going, we had to road in the back with legs akimbo. One of the members was Bob Madigan, aka Donkey Daddy, the uncouth singer for Fluff Grrl. The After After Party included some of the anti-cult cult figures like Hal, of Ask Dr. Hal, and members of the Church of the Subgenius, Bishop Joey, bands like Mongoloid. And Cyclecide Bike Rodeo, which is a punk carnivalesque club of brave folk who make custom bikes that are tall or short or any combination of the two or perversion of expectation.

Esmerelda Strange was the first performer. She is a one woman band, and played a song about a punk bike club, part of the song being in Spanish. As I was hanging with the crowd, meeting people, I realized that not only her second but also her third song was the same as the first. But each was announced with a different name, and dedicated to a different group, like Cyclecide, or the Black Label bike club. She was very serious, talking about how she was nervous about doing a whole set of new songs in honor of Saint Stupid’s Day. Everyone in the crowd listening to her seemed serious and unphased by that. Was I the only one who noticed? I had to ask people. When I found someone had also noticed, we could break out in laughter together. She seemed pathetic, slightly crazed, as if the stage fright had made her forget she had already just done that song. She kept making references to "we". Her band. But there was no one else there. We giggled more together, trying not to hurt her feelings, as no one else seemed to be laughing. Then her next song was the same song as well. She never smiled, never seemed exaggerated. It was impossible to keep a straight face. We had to turn away from her so she wouldn’t notice. Then she announced again a new song, and began singing the same one again. It was just amazing. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I spun around in a circle, laughing. Ok, I could see why she was the opening act that came on at 4:20.

I ended up sitting on the bike that I had blistered myself on last Cyclecide event. It’s a stationary bike that whips you as you pedal it. Ok, ok, I rode it again, this time….

I was thereby sitting right next to one of the rides there, in the Junkyard. A full on junkyard, with lots of grunge and oil and water puddles, which a ball was kicked through all night long for a dog to chase. The white ball of string became blacker and blacker. As a few people pedel bikes in the center of the ride, it makes other people swing outwards and upwards, their expressions fascinating to watch. They open out their arms and fly, or they screw up their faces in fear, or they fall over sideways, their eyes closed, their fingers up and riding the air, or they have the biggest smiles possible, or….

I rode the other ride, a verticle one, and two riders pedel in the seat contraptions that carry us up high above the junkyard. I was proud of myself to make it through it, though whooped every time I went over the top.

“Our CD’s are available at the table. But none of these new songs are on the CD.” When Esmerelda was done singing, I went over to look at her C.D. The girl behind the table said, “Isn’t she great? A whole new set of songs for Saint Stupid’s Day.”
“So….um.... they were all the same song.”

“Well, you know, her band members all have conflicting ideas about what to do, and it’s hard working with them and getting the program to work out…” Someone had grabbed her attention. Hmm… I looked over at Esmerelda Strange, whom I was very curious about at the moment. I hovered around her conversations, looking for a sign. People were telling her how good it was. Finally, I heard her say: “Oh good. I’m glad someone was amused by that other than me.” Ah. Ok. She MEANT to do that. April Fools.

Then more bands played, induding the punk sound art band, Fluff Grrl. By that time, Bob, the singer I had ridden over with, had transformed into a full on kneeling and contorting rock star, and was stumbling onto the stage now and again, but gracefully, never losing the song, which was always undeniably expressive. Barney was playing the theramin and other invented electronic instruments beautifully, holding the intensity and spinning it around. The music covered the range of existence at once from the base to the sublime, and I instigated slamming into people while rolling my body, thus celebrating the rising of the consciousness to the heights of bliss and glory, and the electronics would cycle upwards. Cycling upwards to the sky was the theme of the evening, for this ragtaggle crowd.

Pyrotechnics were shot off, bottle rockets whizzing past us, as we stood next to the fire in the pail, burning whatever may come. Beautifully unked out people were ducking and backing up. Esmerelda played the same song between every act.

And Cyclecide was riding around and jousting on tallbikes. I asked someone if he it didn’t hurt to joust. He pointed to one who he said had recently fallen and burst open his face, broken his nose, and lost some teeth. Their vests and jackets all had hand sewn Cyclecide, and a variation of a certain identifiable skull with its mouth open, often drinking. And each had chosen the rest of the “logo” on his custom vest.

There was fire in the air, anarchy, and junk.

Saint Stupid's website
Cacophony Society
Esmerelda Strange
Wavy Gravy
Fluff Grrl

Rallying Around Audacious Declarations

2006-01-07T23:01:00.000-08:00

The King of Hearts and I pushed through the piece of cloth hanging half way down the door, ducking down to make it through it, feeling like we were going into someone's bedroom, pushed the half-door open, and went into COUNTRY STATION, in the Mission, (2140 Mission St) which was about as different as it could be from it's name. An urban Sushi restaurant that offered me a tambourine made of clothes hanger wire taped up, with japanese beer bottle tops strung along it. I provided integral accompaniment for the Mariachi band that came in. You've got to love a place that makes tambourines like that. That, for me, is what gives a restaurant a lot of stars.

The King of Hearts is part of the band Forever What?, which declares itself the most important conceptual band in the world. Their live shows will be rare, huge, over the top events with an unprecedented amount of quirky merchandise, like charms that go with each show. The music layers unprecedented combinations. The King of Hearts keeps us up to date with the brilliant other world of the band at the vastly entertaining blog, with music, Forever What? The band members discuss their role in a depraved San Francisco setting: “We are free here, enmeshed within this clot of sound, our own bodies the instruments of perfect melody and this darkness the corrupting pulse of every mammalian heart!”
“We are music.”
“No, we are the death of music giving birth to the future of sound.”

The King of Hearts and I watched the dramatized history of another San Francisco man who made bold declarations about himself. Dark Theater is showing Emperor Norton: The Musical, weekends, this month, www.darkroomsf.com/norton(2263 Mission Street).

Norton lost his fortune in rice in 1859 and promptly declared himself “Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.” For the next 20 years he issued proclamations defending minorities. He boldly imagined the world as if he had power, and he ended up having noticable influence.

My heart rate jumped when Mark Twain told us in the movie that 30,000 people were drawn to pay him regards at Emp's funeral. That, my friends, is something many would like to have. Songs told us that he people like it when it looks like maybe you can change the world. Are we rallying around people changing the world enough?

People are rallying around the wacky, benevolant Norton these days in San Francisco, the anniversary of his death having just passed, on Jam 8, where people attended his funeral. Even his death in the play made me cry, though I was hoping no one would notice, stealthily wiping tears. .

People are rallying around Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who wrote the resolution to name the bridge between San Franciso and Oakland after him.“Emperor Norton Bridge” actually just became San Francisco’s official desired name, this Christmas. We see the value in characters who defy the limitations we are given, and become larger than life.
www.emperornortonbridge.org

The State Legislature hold Norton's name in their teeth. Will they bite?

Nortons declared Congress was to be abolished. And indeed, it certainly still could use a shaking up. The Bay Area has its own strong woman declaring herself a Congressional Candidate, Carol Brouillet, launching her campaign on the January 15th, Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Sunday, January 15th, 11:00am - 1:00pm
Speaking Out - For Truth, Peace, and Justice.(Palo Alto, Lytton Plaza)
She has a dream of a future as benevolant as King or even the one the one that made Emperor Norton so popular, and it is very sane. Minority candiates know they often have to be satisfied with getting their message out to the public, stirring up some controversy, as being elected is a tough order because of the system that is in place. But, those who empower themselves can be heard, and can create real change. She says
"The "War on Terrorism" is a bogus war, a war of terrorism
against all people, a war on truth, a war on freedom, launched by a
terrorist attack which has all the fingerprints of a special operation,
a Reichstag Fire. 9-11 was one of the false pretexts, lies, used to
sell the war on Iraq."

Like Norton, and King, Carols says "Another world is possible. We can do together what none of us can do
alone." 911 Truth

by Tantra Bensko
www.freewebs.com

Art Unopening and Opening Through Us All

2006-01-05T22:26:00.000-08:00

Art unopened before me tonight, in the dark alley in Soma, a dark alley in the gods' liquid bliss. Soma, the nectar, and the acronym, and within, the alley of surprise, as I neared Pigman gallery for the announded art opening. That gallery has become a wide open heart of beating pulsation, opening after opening. This was to be my first opening to lay before your eyes that become your ears. Hearing my red headed voice through your eyes, you would have flocked to admire, and buy the works of talent. Instead, as I turned the corner that led to the gallery, The Pigman himself walked past me, eyes down, with no propriatory air wafting about him at all.

His hair waved around his ears in the breeze of his walk, and I turned around to walk with him, away from the gallery.
"What are you doing?"

I had to ask. Why was he not at his show? It was to be his own works at his own gallery, his big night.

"Didn't you get my email?" No, I hadn't, including a group email alert said he'd sent out, that somehow missed me.
"I just got off work. I haven't even been by the gallery. Anyone who thinks we're going to have a show in January is mental. Almost no galleries have shows in January. They just let it go. I'm rethinking this whole gallery business, anyway. Sorry, I'd buy you a beer but i'm beat. I've been doing design work since 7 this morning. I'm making good money doing that.You had a gallery, you know how much good that is for making money. Did you ever sell anything?

"Yes..."

""I've studied the galleries on Geary. They have a fantastic show tonight. And a business plan. People tell me it's that they have money. I don't want to just keep thinking that." I had never heard him say anything good about the Geary galleries like he did that night. Before, he'd said fuck them, who need's em. His hoisterous hand gestures showed his gallery had the real art show, more raw, tough, pulsing the boundaries. The alternative, not the commercial.

" People ask me, what, aren't you doing your show? And I tell them, what, are you crazy? Do you think I was at the gallery over Christmas? " He is really such a lovable cuss. He's my buddy, and I hear him. Our step is fast.

I am supposed to do a show there in the spring. A show called "Tales from the Secret Rooms." Now, the future is around a bend.

"I can't do it all. I'm making money doing something else, for gosh sakes. And you can't depend on interns. But I'm not giving up! I'm still going! I don't want to sell the art they sell. I want to show art like yours, and i'm meeing great people doing this." And the chance arose out of the alley, for someone reading this to be involved in a gallery if you so wish, where the alternative art scene happens in an excellent way, a professional, startling, brilliant way. The shows can remain imprinted on your mind, and become part of the dream ethers of San Francisco.

When I got to the steps leading to the underground, we hugged goodbye.

The train had cast a silent mode on its inhabitants. A young man stood in the corner, facing the riders. His wool cap was pulled tightly over his head, and his clothes meant to blend in, but intense muscles bound his face in emotion and a vision of this thoughts in front of his face, as he stared at it, his expression always remaining just as intense, the variations in his expressions subtleties each worthy of a DeNiro. He was handsome, yet hidden beneath the cap. I saw his face reflected in the glass, and was he looking at me? It was hard to tell, but when I saw his reflection, he looked down. I'd stare away, outside the window, or look at the all the others finding reflections to look through. I saw two others see each other in reflections, and look away. I looked a different direction, and thought, and then, refocusing my eyes, I realized I was looking through another reflection of him. As I noticed him, he seemed to be looking at me, and then suddenly looked down at the ground. Every time I looked at him, his face was down, down, hiding from the bus it seemed. I realized once again another reflection of him, at another angle, and he looked down, pulling his cap more strenuously over his face. All our reflections on the train were moving past each other, in and out of one another, and there would go a hand of one person through the head of another. Then the real person would go through both of them, and the train would turn, making the reflections curve in upon themselves in a quantum party. Everyone on the train was looking down. Reflections like parrallel world moved through them, surprising them with eyes looking at them, coming around the curve. Hands, eyes, collar bones, reading, writing, listening to music, all being so separate, yet finding themselves strung through each other anyway, and there was nothing they could do about it.

Noticing Black Oat Books, www.BlackOakBooks.com, at 630 Irving Street, the Sunset's treasure, I hopped off the train. My appetite was up for art. I found it. An excellent store for finding something different. It was almost as if the staff were reading my mind, but maybe we catching the book in my hand out of the corner of their eyes. As I picked up a Paul Auster book, I heard them talking about Auster. They have new, used and old books, and in the used art section, I gleefully discovered to my astonishment, Michiko Kon's photography, a black and white Aperture Book. I had been looking at the shelf, thinking, what art book could i find that I would want to see as much as the one I'm working on myself, called From the Secret Rooms, to accompany the art show, surreal images created by putting together combinations of --things and photographing and reworking them? But this book, this surreal combination of---things, was just as exciting to see. I looked at the essay in the back of the book, about her work, and it was called "In the Secret Room." Amazing. Everyday objects, predominantly fish, became other, in a dreamlike astonishment. Yes, I would support a local store, and I would buy art. Entering the Secret Room.

Fish became silver, and black nodes of genius. The shining surfaces arising out of the darkness became objects worthy of waking dreams. "The sardines ate my soup," the waiter cried, dying into the applesauce and stringing himself along into a kind, gentle vegetable.

"However can we go about recovering our meal? "

"Put the sardines on your hat, my lady, string it up to a tree filled with baby's breath and fish heads, and then, you will float above all your pain."

"My hunger too?"

"Your hunger too. But look inside of this box of dreams. It opens into another space where there you are sitting at a table made of eels and cuttlefish, and you are hungry no more. You are eaten instead, by a mouth that includes a flower, a fork and spoon, an eye. Now, how do you feel?"

Walking on 9th avenue, between Irving and Judah, I passed by a window, my mind being caught up in reflection, and through that came a yong woman's face I recognized. It was Cafe Gratitude, click here for Cafe Gratitide. That is one of the absolute best restaurants in San Francisco, and it serves raw, vegan, organic, living food in a metaphyisical setting, with huge prints inspiring art, with staff who take the time to bond with me in great euphoric bursts when I go in. I went in through the open door, to report back to her about my dream. We hugged, and she was wearing a beautiful flower in her long dark hair. "I just had to come in and tell you what happened about my dream with Louie!:I had told her and two other people working there about my dream, last time I was there, with a friend, local artistic legend, Louie Lights. http://www.lightnwire.com/about_us3.htm. I had dreamed of being a housemate, in his flat, and then, that night, we ate there, where Louie had reminisced that the Cacophony Society had begun long ago. http://cacophony.org The Cacophony Society is an exciting group of people who create events that sqeeze the dreams out of reality and play with them like cats batting around a catnip toy.

And we went to his house to watch a movie from "Le Video. www.LeVIdeo.com" across the street. What a haven for alternative videos. They have more movies from France than from other foreign countries, but they have a recommendable selection of avant-garde, artistic, beautiful films, great for folks who look outside of the mainstream vision of reality. And as I was walked into his flat, the walls and shelves looked at me. It was eerie. It was just like my dream of his place. Just like it, and he had told me nothing about it. He showed me one of his ingenius light sculptures, and I looked into it, and it opened up a space on the other side of his wall that didn't exist. And that was where I had been living in the dream, in that newly opened up optical illusion space.

:"That's just great your dream was the same as that space." the waitress said. "We should do some dream experiments together."

" We can see if we can share a dream, or both dream at the same time and compare notes, interpretting them in a way we plan out first..." Yes, San Francisco is the land where dreams and reflections and art and time and space call all move past each other, in and out, and there are many here who celebrate it, understand the quantum interelationship of us all. The mainstream, in which people carefully guard their boundaries of self, wrap them up in bundles, is one reflection that moves through us all, and we can put our hand through that illusion and open the door.

by Tantra Bensko
www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko

We Begin, Ahhhh

2006-01-04T18:48:00.000-08:00

So, here we go, kiddos. Here, you can read about underground, alternative cultural events in the Bay Area, new ventures, businesses that we should be keeping an eye on to keep honest, artists of all ilk who are fascinating characters, new books and art and music coming out of the area, politcal shakings and what we can do about it, the haps about the hoods.....