Maker Faire 2008

A two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself mindset.

Saturday, May 3rd, 10a-10p, Sunday, May 4th, 11a-6p - $25 adv/door (Students $15)

Established by the tech-loving creators of the gloriously irreverent Make (www.makezine.com) and Craft (www.craftzine.com) magazines, Maker Faire is a family-friendly, hands-on event where hundreds of backyard inventors gather to share their fun projects, creative ideas and eye-popping creations. Along with dozens of workshops and seminars on how to get the most crafty with your budget, see unusual homebuilt cycles, mechanical puzzles, fire arts, robot insects and even the Bellagio Fountains recreated with Diet Coke & Mentos. Both days feature live (and often strange) musical performances. Last year the Maker Faire hosted over 40,000 attendees. Another way to get a free ticket: Subscribe to Make Magazine or Craft Magazine for just $35, enjoy an entire year’s worth of Maker projects, and get a Maker Faire Adult Day Pass ($25 Value) for free.

2008 Maker Faire Highlights: Lego Jeep, propane fountain, handbuilt musical instruments, robo games, a lecture titled “5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do,” Life-sized mousetrap, art golf, rocket launch pad, LED stunt bike riding, and power tool drag races.

“A celebration of tinkerers, garage hobbyists and gearheads of all stripes” - Newsweek

San Mateo Fairgrounds - 2495 S. Delaware Street - San Mateo

Close to 101, 280 and 92 ($8 onsite parking, but free parking and shuttles from satellite locations)

Sex, Film and Videotape

Director Q&A and film on the history of filmmaking about sex from 1908 to 2008.

Thursday, May 1st, 8p - $5 door

ISIS Inc presents Sex, Film and Videotape: 100 Years of Sexual Health. Award-winning filmmaker and sex educator Mark Schoen appear in person to present 100 years of filmmaking about sex & provide live commentary. From silent film through black-and-white all the way to DVDs and the Internet, see how the conversation about sex has (or hasn’t) changed through the years. And discover the role advancing technology has played in our understanding of this most intimate of topics- sex.

Award winning filmmaker and human sexuality expert, Dr. Mark Schoen, will be presenting footage of early sexual health films from the 1900s to the present day and he will also provide narration/commentary on the footage concerning the social implications of the films. [more information]

Roxie Theater - 3117 16th St. (@ Valencia) - Mission District

(BART: 16th St. Mission) (Muni: 14, 22, 33, 49, 53)

Point Break Live!

Novel and fun stage production of the 1991 Keanu Reeves / Patrick Swayze film travesty.

Saturday, May 3rd, 10p - $25 adv / door

The live stage version of this neglected masterpiece of American cinema is ostentatiously tacky, but so was the 1991 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze extreme-sports blockbuster about surfing, bank robbing and sky diving. This is an interactive performance, so much so that “survival kits’ consisting of a plastic emergency poncho to protect the viewers from the action that literally spills forth from the stage, are issued before the start of the show. Every night a different Johnny Utah is pulled from the audience - the thought being that to truly represent Keanu Reeves (aka Johnny Utah), an actor must be completely untrained and unrehearsed. How true, brah.

Since its Seattle debut in 2003, “Point Break Live!” has ‘rawked’ sell-out crowds in Minneapolis, and New York City, and it continues strong after six-months in Los Angeles to rave reviews. Point Break Live has three shows each week; Fridays (9pm) and Saturdays (7:30p and 10p)

“Don’t Miss” - San Francisco Chronicle

Video Sample: Point Break Live! on G4 TV

Xenodrome Theater - 1320 Potrero Avenue (@ 25th St.) - Potrero Hill

(Muni: 9, 27, 33, 48)

Václav Havel’s “Vanek”

Three works by renowned Czech playwright

May 1,3,4 8p (Sunday at 2p & 7p) - $20 ($15 students)

Eastenders Repertory Company performs three Vanek plays: Audience, Unveiling and Protest by former president of the Czech Republic Václav Havel. This trilogy centers on the author’s fictional alter ego Ferdinand Vanek, who, like the playwright-turned-statesman Havel , worked in a brewery before being jailed as a political dissident. Imprisoned for four years in the mid-1970s, Havel wrote Audience and Unveiling after his release to entertain a small gathering of fellow writers, all of whom had their work banned in their native countries. In Audience, Vanek has a bleakly absurd and comical encounter with his boss; in Unveiling, he visits a frighteningly conformist and avidly consumerist couple; and in Protest, Vanek confronts his friend, a successful TV writer, to convince him to sign an anti-government petition.

Special Programs:On Monday May 5 and Wednesday May 7 (8p), Audience will be presented together with the readings of works by Pavel Kahout, Pavel Landovsky and Jiri Dienstbier, playwrights who all devised their own dramas about Vanek. These readings will be followed by a moderated discussion about the role of the artist in a politically repressive regime. - $20, or $15 for students

Jewish Community Center of the East Bay - 1414 Walnut Ave. (@ Rose) - Berkeley

(Nearest Bart: Downtown Berkeley) (AC Transit: 7, 9, 18)

Kulture Kulcha Bollywood Club Night

Benefit for South Asian LGBT community in Bay Area

Friday, May 2nd, 10:30p - $10 adv / $15 door

Kulture Kulcha - or “a mix of cultures” - reflects Trikone’s incredibly diverse membership and allies, from across South Asia and all over the world. It is an evening dedicated to celebrating our unique fusion of identities. In celebration, DJs will spin Desi beat from 10:30p to 1am. Want dinner and a dance performance? for $30 at the door, you get an Indian buffet dinner, plus South Asian/Queer/Fusion cultural dances and spoken word performances from 8:30p-10:30p, followed by the Bollywood Dance Club until 1am.

The California Ballroom - 1736 Franklin Street (at 19th Street) - Oakland

Moonshine Party

Old-Timey, Western Swing and Folk music festival

Saturday, May 3rd, 9p - $10 adv / $12 door

Shelby Ash Presents, who promote tons of great bluegrass and roots concerts (and even some hotcake hoedowns) in the bay area, are putting together a fun triple bill tonight with The Earl Brothers, Big B & His Snake Oil Saviors and Toshio Hirano. Honky-Tonk Headliners, The Earl Brothers, are a four-piece all-original string band are celebrating their record release party. Big B & His Snake Oil Saviors are an 8-peice western swing band with a full horn section that will bring a fair bit of hillbilly boogie. Opening is Japanese folk music singer Toshio Hirano.

Cafe Du Nord - 2170 Market (btwn Church and Sanchez) - Upper Market / Castro

(Metro: F, J, K, L, M, N - Church St. Station) (Muni: 22, 24, 37)

Inspirare

Guggenheim fellow Sarah Shelton Mann’s trilogy, part of the “Dancers Debate the Body politic” festival

Thursday-Saturday, May 1-3rd 8pm - $20 adv / $25 door ($18 students)

Since first appearing in San Francisco in the 1970s, this Guggenheim Fellow Sara Shelton Mann has been a dancing and performing testament to the powers of endurance. Inspirare uses apocalyptic humor and shell-shocked optimism to tell a story of an environmental catastrophe that forces two women to wander through both the past and the future in order to deal with their rage and compassion.

For the Record; Dancers Debate the Body Politic is a dance/performance festival spread out over three weekends that scrutinizes the politics of government and history, the environment, and of course, the body.

“a chilling, visceral, unrelenting vision…” -San Francisco Chronicle

Project Theater Artaud - 450 Florida Street (btwn 17th St. & Mariposa) - Potrero Hill

(Muni: 12, 27, 33, 53)

The BrEaST of Sherry Glaser

Acclaimed travel author teaches you about strange corners of the world; a different show every night

Friday, May 2 ($15 adv/door), Saturday May 3 ($25 adv/door), 8pm Discount: use discount code “funcheap” to get $10 tickets

“BrEaST” features a trio of outrageous characters who all challenge the status quo in different ways. Miguel De Cervantes (last seen at The Marsh in 2006 in Glaser’s critically acclaimed run of Oh My Goddess!) opens the evening with a call for a shift in the male archetype and paradigm. He is followed by Mother Superior, an evangelical, spiritual leader who has questions for the Lord and a mandate for a mighty prayer. This section includes audience participation. Finally, Sam Slam (Super Lesbian Activist Mother) brings the power of Breasts Not Bombs (Glaser is co-founder of the notorious anti-war group) to sublime life in a passionate plea to save the world immediately. Glaser, who calls her work Peace Activist Revolution Theater, will combine her performances with several peace actions around San Francisco . She is the author and star of Off-Broadway’s longest running one-woman show Family Secrets. Performances are most Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays through June 14th at 8pm
The Marsh Theater - 1062 Valencia Street (btwn 21st and 22nd) - Mission District

(BART: 24th Street) (Muni: 14, 26, 49, 67)

The Privies & Matadon

The Doors vs. The Clash with a dash of rockabilly.

Friday, May 2nd, 9p - $9 door

The Privies sound is best described by throwing The Doors in with The Clash into a blender on high. It’s a mix of Classic Rock, Rockabilly and old school Punk. Their songs thrive on dark lyrics sung over poppy melancholy melodies. Imagine what might happen if Neil Diamond, Angus Young, Mike Ness of Social Distortion and Jim Morrison formed an all original new band in the 21st century.

Matadon whips up 70s psychedelic jams and gritty experimental jazz rock with an underlying pop sensibility and some hippie flavoring. Multi media shows and dance inducing tracks have made their shows worth talking about. Also performing is General Jones and the Z-Trane Electric band.

The Hotel Utah Saloon - 500 Fourth St. (@ Bryant) - South of Market

(Caltrain: SF Depot) (Muni: N, T, 12, 15, 27, 20, 45, 47, 76)

Sugar & Gold

Saucy electro dance band with a great live show

Thursday, May 8th 8pm - $10 adv / door

Watch out for Sugar & Gold whole steal the show from just about every band they’ve opened up for, This San Francisco-based band’s raucous sets never fail to get even the most uptight teasers on the dance floor. The band combine classic harmony songwriting with a hook heavy dance music approach making for a sound that draws from 30 years of electronic and soul music and after a cocktail or to, even you might shake your booty too. (Headliners are Oakland/Sacramento Electro pop band Wallpaper, also the sexy.. and downright dirty… hip-hop of Hot Tub.)

“Alive and Kicking: (one of) the 7 bands you’ve got to see and hear” - 7×7 Magazine

See this show if you like: Jamiroquai, The Tom Tom Club, Scissor Sisters.

Audio Samples: Neighborhood (.mp3), Workout (.mp3)

Rickshaw Stop - 155 Fell (just west of Van Ness) - Civic Center

(Bart: Civic Center) (Metro: Van Ness) (Muni: F, 6, 7, 9, ,21, 26, 47, 49, 66, 71)