Mere days after Jon and Sheila got back from their honeymoon in Tonga, Dandeline was performing at Cafe Du Nord's Monday Night Hoot. I got there pretty early, and Dan caught me at the bar staring dejectedly into my cider as Pizzicato Five's "Baby Love Child" sent me on a bad nostalgia trip. The show started out strong, with Eric Shea working his usual magic before Dandeline laid down three lovely songs (with amazing clarinet accompaniment from Ralph Carney on the last). Ralph also went on to play at least three other instruments with Ted Savarese's ensemble. And after Ted, well, there was pretty much nowhere to go but down.

The first time I saw Time Bandits I must have been about ten years old and definitely not yet an appreciator of Terry Gilliam's work. Not only did I find the film completely unsettling and hard to understand, I hated the damn dwarves for dragging Kevin away from the happiness he found as the appointed heir to King Agamamemnon. Now that I know a little bit more about that particular story I know that no good could come to anyone in that court, but I still feel a twinge of sadness as Kevin looks longingly at his Polaroid of Sean Connery as the tragic Greek king. At least now I get a huge kick out of Gilliam's madcap melding of history, legend, and fairy tale, and I enjoy the dark edges of the story (instead of having nightmares about them).

Last Thursday I introduced Carol to the wonders of Ti Couz before we saw the incredible Nick Drake documentary A Skin Too Few at the Roxie. I wanted to repeat the Ti Couz and Roxie experience this week, but when I arrived at the restaurant I found it closed so that the employees could celebrate an anniversary or some shit. After a moment of indecision on the 16th Street sidewalk, I determined it was time to try Tokyo Go Go. Absolutely correct decision. I sat at the sushi bar and was fed one delightful concoction after another by my chef, and we're talking stuff I didn't even order. I gave as much effusive praise as I could through a mouth stuffed with raw fish.

Showing at the Roxie this week was Culture Jam: Hijacking Commercial Culture, a film by Canadian Jill Sharpe about those bold souls who find creative ways of talking back to corporate bombast, most often by using their symbols to create art. I was delighted by her coverage of the Bay Area's own Billboard Liberation Front; the group even allowed her to film them on one of their recent campaigns in which they hit a number of billboards down US101. Equally inspiring was Reverend Billy, leader of the Church of Stop Shopping in New York, who uses his acting talent to create havoc in the Times Square Disney Store. Sharpe allowed a billboard media executive his share of camera time, but as he sat perched on a desk in front of one of those horrible Bebe bus shelter ads you could just feel him digging his own grave. Preceding the film were three brilliant shorts handpicked by Craig Baldwin, including one in which Bryan Boyce had dubbed in dialogue from old pulp science fiction films over a series of clips of news anchors doing their talking head thing.

After a brief stop at the BASMO party I headed over to DNA for Amber's CD release party. The place was more packed out on a Thursday night than I'd seen in ages, with belly dancers, fire performers, and Forest Green in attendance. The music was great, though the sleaze factor was a little high on account of everyone being in such close quarters.

Saturday morning I had a blessedly snake-free hike up at Black Diamond Mines, though I'm beginning to realize my enthusiasm for hiking is waning a little now that the weather in the East Bay has turned genuinely hot for summer. Seeing four snakes in Las Trampas last weekend didn't help any either. Black Diamond is an awesome park though, with tons of old mine shafts, a coal miner cemetary, and gorgeous vistas.

That evening I dined on scrumptious Thai at Krung Thep before driving over to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to see the Joe Goode Performance Group perform "What the Body Knows" and "Mythic, Montana." Both pieces were wonderfully droll, though it took me a couple minutes at first to loosen up enough to start laughing. Goode combines spoken word, dance, and theater into pieces that don't take themselves seriously at all as they tell their stories, but as a consequence they can be quite moving and beautiful. I particularly liked "Mythic" as it turned Greek myth on its head, transforming Psyche into a pretentious young goth, Narcissus into an adopted refugee boy, and Sisyphus into Joe Goode himself as a street cleaner perpetually sweeping leaves off the pavement. I appreciate that I live in a place where I can see Goode's company just one week after Aimee and I absorbed Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project at Zellerbach.

Time Bandits
A Skin Too Few
The Roxie
Culture Jam
Black Diamond Mines
Las Trampas Regional Wilderness
Joe Goode Performance Group
White Oak Dance Project