"Rock of Ages" Resurrects the Rockin 80s

"This place is about to become a sea of sweat, ear-shattering music and puke. So start drinking…now!" bellows out club owner Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin) and ahh... I'm home again - That home to me and my tribe in the late 80s, prowling Sunset Boulevard in boots, big hair, and leather. Looking for fame, fun, loud music, and love. We found a little of each back then, and now everyone can - in "Rock of Ages"!

Living a similar parallel life back then, Stacy was my perfect companion to see this movie. We didn't go expecting much, but this over-the-top anthemic 80s musical (yes, musical) blew us away in so many ways. Started out simple enough - Small town girl Sherrie and city boy Drew, who meet on the Sunset Strip while pursuing their Hollywood dreams. Their rock ‘n’ roll romance is told through the heart-pounding hits of Def Leppard, Joan Jett, Journey, Foreigner, Bon Jovi, Night Ranger, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Poison, Whitesnake, and more.

But the movie takes so many cool, unexpected twists and turns, and in doing so somehow:
* conjurs the cool, insider's POV like Spinal Tap did,  but characterized and satirized in a fun way rather than the depricating spiral that Spinal Tap was
* doesn't allow Tom Cruise's Stacee Jaxx to descend into the nihilistic tailspin of Pink in "The Wall"
* doesn't even come close to the cheesy camp of other rock musicals like "Mamma Mia"

It found redeeming qualities in characters that Hollywood usually milks for their "train-wreck" value, and managed to not take itself too seriously, but without any Will Farrell-style goofiness. It was at the same time an homage, a roast, and even documentary of a time that those of us that were there remember with a smile, a cringe, and a sigh...
Way to go, Hollywood, this time you got it right. You can still rock in America!

"In Paris"...We're not in Santa Cruz anymore...

We'd had our noses to the grindstone, and it had been too long since we'd escaped this land of tie-dye and tofu to, well, another land of tie-dye and tofu - Berkeley. But on Saturday night, it wasn't Berkeley we were in, we were In Paris via Berkeley. First up, a mind-blowing French dinner at Bistro Liaison, then Mikhail Baryshnikov at the Berkeley Rep Theater - In Paris.

Bistro Liaison, aptly described as "French food for the soul," was lively, yet warm and intimate, and exotic, yet the menu and waitstaff somehow make you feel right at home (or maybe it was leading off with an exquisite cocktail of gin, lavender, and grapefruit juice that did it).

I was feeling adventurous, and tried the escargot, which were amazingly good - poached snails in garlic parsley butter with Pastis - and user-friendly, unassumingly bedded in their marinade/tapenade rather than hiding in their shells.

Next came the pièce de résistance, an other-worldly seafood dish called Sole Farcie - a Petrale sole filled with Dungeness crab baked in a shrimp & Cognac cream sauce. This was one of those times that you discover a food that tastes nothing like you've ever had before, and you don't want it to end. Stacy was almost as enthralled with her Salmon Paillard - Grilled salmon topped with tapenade on a bed of roasted beets, saffron aioli & toasted fennel powder.

After sharing each other's entrees, we figured it would be hard to follow these acts, but the Profiteroles were literally the icing on the cake.

And so we strolled a few blocks and got to the theater with time to spare and enjoyed the photo displays in the lobby, books in the shop, and diverse and lively mix of theater-goers about to be treated to this epic performance.

In Paris uses a nuanced, complex theatrical vocabulary of music, film, mime, video, even an actress flying dreamily suspended by wires, and exerpts of Russian and French to explore the relationship between an older man and a younger woman and its larger theme of profound loneliness.

The story focuses on Baryshnikov's general, who moved to Paris years ago, after his wife left him following the war for a younger man in Constantinople. While in the City of Lights, he meets a beautiful waitress (Anna Sinyakina) whose husband is away at war in Yugoslavia, and we see their relationship blossom. The story is one of loneliness and despair and eventual happiness and acceptance as two foreigners with a common bond find each other in a not-so-new city.

By play's end, the audience was mezmerized, thrilled, and thoroughly satisfied and showed our appreciation with a standing ovation lasting 4 or 5 curtain calls. We learned that the company is headed to Italy, and then Lincoln Center in New York City to no doubt thrill audiences there as well. What great fortune that we were able to experience such a getaway right here, in our own backyard...

“Spectacular but also intimate…An ephemeral dream of last romance, which floats from lovely to surreal [and] keenly captures the ache of solitude and the fleeting bliss of romance…Mikhail Baryshnikov scarcely dances at all until the haunting finale of In Paris. But the ballet legend shows such a genius for movement that his body language is an art unto itself in this fearlessly inventive theatrical adventure. The dancer has such a striking physical presence, even at 64, that he elevates the smallest movements into epic moments of truth. He is mezmerizing.”—San Jose Mercury News / Bay Area News Group

The Edwardian Ball San Francisco 2012

The Edwardian Ball at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco is an annual extravaganza that just can’t be conveyed in pictures or words. Yesterday, my friend Mary called and asked if I would be interested in changing our plans to celebrate her birthday up in San Francisco at this heralded event. Trusting her uncanny knack for discovering cool, quirky, and culturally-rich things to do, I agreed.

Checking out their website, I immediately discovered I may have agreed to more than I bargained for! Period costume, though not required, was encouraged. And so I found myself in downtown Santa Cruz, first at the Thrift Store, then the Hat Shop, then standing in front of the mirror, complete with a mustache and eye-liner (haven’t worn that since the 80s…) ready for action.

“For 10 years now the Ball has proven, through its collection of the best in local and far-reaching performance talents — from the circus to the music hall — and its inherent power to inspire and produce the utmost in imaginative creativity, to be one of the most defining events of San Francisco.” - SF Examiner

We started the evening at a nearby sushi restaurant – Wayo Sushi – and met her interesting friends Craig, an attorney that plays and writes music and meditates, and Laura, a well-traveled, warm and diverse Osteopathic  doctor – the perfect pair to join us for this evening of debauchery.

Just a block away, the multi-story Regency Building, boasting 2 ballrooms, a neoclassic, Scottish Rite, and beaux arts style architecture, and built in 1909, was our destination for the evening.

Immediately upon entering the building and taking in the sights and sounds, it was clear “We’re not in Kansas anymore…” While almost everyone sported period dress, this was unmistakably 2012 San Francisco, where (almost) anything goes.

We decided rather than foisting ourselves immediately into the main ballroom to visit the vendor faire downstairs, where the juxtaposition of Edwardian-meets-goth-meets-sexy was everywhere, and took the opportunity to pick up a commemorative bauble for my awesome girlfriend, Stacy, back in Santa Cruz. Booth after booth of everything from leather corsets, jewelry, to costume ball masks worthy of Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut”…

From there, we visited the nearest bar, and the drink of the night was Absinthe. But being the designated driver, I opted for something less hypnotic. The Grand Ballroom was everything I’d heard it would be – vast, ornate, and …well… grand. The band was somehow synthesizing period ragtime and waltzes with a techno-rave beat. I still don’t know how they did it, but anything that gets yours truly to dance (let alone waltz!) is worthy of mention.

Taking the intriguing, antiquated elevator to the top floor, we witnessed a vast array of quirkiness – performers jumping on broken glass, a groove-beat ukulele player, and installation art that included apocalyptic scenes reminiscent of “Road Warrior”

But there’s something indescribable that was happening last night. It was in the way that attendees greeted each other, smiled at each other, complimented and amused each other. It was a recognition that we’d found another “tribe” that we belonged to. Unlike Halloween, when everyone is expected to get dressed up, this event was voluntary. Harking back to its’ Edwardian origins, which signaled the end of the repressive Victorian era around the turn of the century and heralded in a greater appreciation for the hedonistic and things cultural, the Ball gives us an opportunity to completely shed the stigma, the persona, the stress of who we are in 2012, and jump on a timeless merry-go-round for a few hours.

“The 10th Annual Edwardian Ball was a fitting, San Francisco-style homage to the cartoon-Gothic writer and illustrator Edward Gorey with a riveting multimedia extravaganza of music, dance, video, art installations, and aerial acrobatics.” – SF Weekly.com

New Year's Day, Old Traditions - 2012

“All that you touch, and all that you see,
Is all your life will ever be..." ...and so it goes as I drive north from Santa Cruz to meet my friend Mary for what has become a New Year's Day tradition for me, and lately for her, too.

Six or seven years ago, I drove up the coast to the Mt. Hope cemetery in Pescadero on a cool, crisp, sunny New Year’s Day. Parked my car, pulled out my iPod, and took in the sights while listening to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.” And every year since, I’ve gone either there or to another for the same reason – to try and appreciate and better understand life, by reminding myself of its finiteness. It’s a wake-up call on the first day of the year to live each day to its fullest this year, and appreciate my health, my friends, my love, and my life.

“And then one day you find ten years have gone behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.”

After meeting Mary at Peet’s coffee on Piedmont in Oakland, we drive a few blocks to the granddaddy of them all – the Mountainview Cemetary : http://www.mountainviewcemetery.org/

A beautiful, seemingly endless expanse of rolling hills, valleys, lawns, trees, gravestones, crypts, and mausoleum unfolds driving through late afternoon, and we find a spot to pull off and walk.

And immediately it hits me as I see a modest gravestone with the inscription “A FRIEND TO MEN.” And wonder what the inscription on mine might read…

The gravestones date back to the mid-1800s. From simple, humble squares, to majestic crypts, these weathered limestone icons, mottled with moss, tell many a tale for those willing to listen. From a cerebral level, it’s interesting to follow the family timelines, thinking about the 25 years that a widow survived after her husband’s death, or find the grave of a prominent businessman, performer, or politician, for example.

One such stone told the story of a famous Japanese-American named Korematsu, an ardent civil rights activist that fought against Japanese internment during WW2, and who Mary had actually met a few years ago.

And from an existential perspective, these silent sentinels remind one of the fleeting, temporal nature of our lives. How even these will wear away someday. And to me, how the contributions I make to friends, family, and this world are the important, lasting legacy that one leaves behind in the end.

“All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.”

After sunset, we made our way back down Piedmont, had a drink at a fabulous place called Cesar, and then landed at the heralded restaurant called Commis for dinner. http://www.commisrestaurant.com/ . This is a place that needs no sign out front. It is a place that takes “food-as-art” to a whole ‘nother level. GQ Magazine has called it one of the "10 Best New Restaurants 2010 in America." The nine-course meal started out with a bowl of rocks – literally. But our waiter explained that we would find a rosemary/polenta version rolled in “vegetable ash” amongst them.

“Choose wisely,” he said, and walked away.

The sumptuous, liesurely meal was a feast for the senses, and a noble way to ring in 2012.

Lastly, we ducked into a nearby bookstore called “Owl & Company Bookstore” http://www.owlandcompany.com/ . You could tell looking in through the windows outside that this was a classic, old-school bookstore, with books from floor to ceiling along the walls, some over 100 years old, with that smell of old books – organic, slightly musty, and real.

 The owner, Todd, was sporting a day’s unshaven visage, blue jeans and a black t-shirt, and from our literary conversation about everything from Amazon.com to Rabindranath Tagore, his passion for books, knowledge, and visceral truth was palpable.

And so ended our beginning of this new year – 2012. Full of guarded optimism with the groundwork I’ve laid in these last few months, steeling and re-tooling myself to survive this economy, to stay close to family and friends, and to continue to build this awesome life together with Stacy. And full of hope for friends far and near, that this year will bring light at the end of the tunnel, peace, and prosperity.

 “The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.”