Sam Spade's San Francisco

What: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass - FREE concert in the Park

Where: Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

When: Friday, Saturday, Sunday - October 2, 3 and 4 - 2009

How Much: Nada, zippo, zilch, nothing - it's all free

Who: Oh, boy. It's a big, big list. Here it is:

Steve Earle & the Bluegrass Dukes, Austin Lounge Lizards, Gillian Welch, Boz Scaggs and the Blue Velvet Band, Dr. Dog, The Duhks, Nick Lowe, Little Feat,Rodney Crowell, Marty Stuart, Dry Branch Fire Squad, Billy Bragg, Mike Farris & the Roseland Rhythm Revue, Robert Earl Keen, Guy Clark & Verlon Thompson, Doc Watson & David Holt, Eliza Gilkyson, The Brothers Comatose, Earl Scruggs, Marianne Faithfull, ODC/Dance, Kevin Welch, Kieran Kane & Fats Kaplin, Marley's Ghost w/ special guest Cowboy Jack Clement, Emmylou Harris, Hazel Dickens, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Hayes Carll, Roger Knox presents the Aboriginal Country & Western Songbook,Elizabeth Cook, Great American Taxi, Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women, Booker T. & the DBTs, Kimmie Rhodes, Old Crow Medicine Show, Red Wine,World Party, Buddy Miller, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Amadou & Mariam, Abalone Dots, The Knitters, Natalie MacMaster, Todd Snider,Barefoot Nellies, Mavis Staples, Songwriter Circle w/ Tom Morello, Dar Williams, Steve Earle & Allison Moorer, The Chieftains, Darrell Scott Band,Laurie Lewis, John Prine, Neko Case, Pamela Rose, Fireants, Allen Toussaint,The Tim O'Brien Band, Billy Joe Shaver, Moonalice, Okkervil River, MC Hammer, Rosie Flores with Jon Langford and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts,Old 97's, Reckless Kelly, Aimee Mann, Steve Martin with the Steep Canyon Rangers, Jorma Kaukonen, The Claire Lynch Band, The Del McCoury Band,Richie Havens, Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys, The Wronglers,Dr. Magpie, The Flatlanders featuring: Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore & Butch Hancock, Marshall Crenshaw, Robyn Hitchcock, Malo, Jessica Lea Mayfield and recently announced: Lyle Lovett and his Large Band.

Important Note: Parking near Speedway Meadow at Golden Gate Park is EXTREMELY LIMITED. After all, Speedway Meadow is not a concert site surrounded by a massive parking lot. It is a green grass meadow inside an urban park for goodness sake. There is no parking. Like it or not - it's time for public transit.

Speedway Meadow is located in the middle of Golden Gate Park. Take a look at this map.

It's just west (the ocean side) of 19th Ave and is not too far from Stowe Lake and the lake is just a little behind the deYoung Museum and the Japanese Tea Garden - and they are across the Music Concourse from the California Academy of Sciences. You can read about some of these attractions below in this post - just scroll down.

Anyway - back to Transit: here's everything you need to know about public transit to Golden Gate Park:

511.org offers automated voice transit information over the phone. However, their voice-recognition software sucks and it is more frustration than information.

The City of San Francisco offers a free information service with a REAL LIVE PERSON you can talk to. Keep in mind that person will probably try to steer you toward 511 for transit info, but be firm and tell them you want the info from them. They are instructed to comply and not push. Reach this free service by calling 311 from any phone inside San Francisco. If you have an out-of-area cellphone call: . You can reach them online or you can talk to them direct on Twitter by following .

You can also go direct to the SFMTA (San Francisco "Muni" - the transit system) website.

In a nutshell, if you're coming from downtown (where most of the municipal-owned parking lots are located) you need to take the 5-Fulton Muni bus. It is an electric trolley bus and it runs the full length of the Richmond (north) side of Golden Gate Park along Fulton Avenue. It's as close as you'll get by public transit. You want to go to 19th Ave. Here's a link to the SFMTA info for the 5-Fulton line.

By the way, the fare for all Muni lines, including the 5-Fulton, is $2 per adult. No change is made. Bring exact cash. Get more fare info here.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness scheduled an event at Speedway Meadows for another time and date. Their staff did a great job of preparing driving directions to Speedway Meadow - but remember - I do not advise you follow these directions, for if you do, you will likely spend a lot of time cruising around looking for a place to park. Still, if you're an A-type personality and refuse to take no for an answer - then go ahead Bad Daddy - here are your directions.

Resources:
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs - deYoung Museum (in the Park)
California Academy of Sciences at Golden Gate Park
Pot clubs (medical marijuana dispensaries) in San Francisco (must have a State ID card)
Great deli sandwiches (beer & booze too) close to GG Park (a block from the Park at 19th Ave)
Official Visitor's site (SF Convention & Visitor Bureau)
SF's 311 Info Service (just call 311 from within the City - ask question, get answer - free)

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

Thanks for coming to San Francisco.

Y'all come back, hear?

- Sunday September 27th

- 12 noon to 3 pm

- For location check (@) on Sunday morning.

A benefit for St Anthony Foundation

Participating food carts:





Pizza Hacker





Urban Nectar


& Soul Cocina

Want to know more? Visit soulcocina.com

Click on the poster to enlarge in a separate tab or window.

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The San Francisco Film Society presents the first annual Cinema by the Bay, October 22 - 25 with programs at Landmark's Clay Theatre, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Temple Nightclub & Prana Restaurant. Cinema by the Bay celebrates the passion, innovation and diversity of Bay Area filmmaking, the intelligence and probing spirit of local directors and the incredible depth and breadth of America's film and media frontier. The four-day festival will feature new work produced in or about the San Francisco Bay Area and provide a compelling window into Bay Area film culture and practice at its best. CBTB includes features, shorts, narratives, documentaries and live performances from well-known and emerging local talent, and explores the rich experimental traditions of the Bay Area by copresenting the San Francisco Cinematheque's tribute to one of its key figures: Chick Strand.

CBTB was programmed by Sean Uyehara with assistance from Audrey Chang, who described their premier foray saying, "The Bay Area is a well-known epicenter for documentary, short and experimental filmmaking, so we knew that we would have a wealth to choose from in those disciplines. We also discovered that narrative filmmaking is expanding its foothold here. These films present a snapshot of the diversity, breath and artistry of Bay Area filmmaking in this moment in time and place."

From 1984 to 2005, Film Arts Foundation programmed the Bay Area's most dynamic showcase of local independent filmmaking with its Festival of Independent Cinema. The Film Society continues the tradition of showcasing entertaining, dramatic and courageous work from one of the most dynamic independent film communities in the country. This is by no means new territory for the Film Society, which has long celebrated films produced in the creative heart of the West, given Golden Gate Awards to Bay Area documentaries and shorts, and three years ago inaugurated a dedicated Cinema by the Bay section in the San Francisco International Film Festival. The most recent edition of the International featured 22 local narrative and documentary feature and short films, capping a total of 113 local films showcased over the past five years. With the advent of Cinema by the Bay, the Film Society will provide Bay Area audiences the opportunity to focus their attention solely on the engaged and eclectic nature of the region's film cultures.

Thursday, October 22
Temple Nightclub & Prana Restaurant, 540 Howard Street
8:00 pm Opening Celebration
An eclectic, exuberant and edifying evening of short film and video screenings, multimedia performances, live music and collegial carousing at one of San Francisco's hippest and most socially and environmentally responsible venues. Eric Landmark will narrate his video about the existential dilemmas posed by the vintage video game Asteroids. Lucas Murida, representing The Thing Quarterly, will predict the future while Wholphin DVD will screen new shorts by cutting-edge filmmakers including Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs. Amy Hicks will present her wonderful cut-out animations and the Sk8 Sisters will sing songs about homesteading. The art collective I, Daughter of Kong will present compelling evidence for the existence of King Kong and Fay Wray's furry love child. Husband and wife team Kathleen Quillian and Gilbert Guerrero will offer a masterful animation/VJ set. The band Work will present its score to original animation by Keturah Cummings, and T.I.T.S. unveils music composed for Daisies by avant-garde Czech filmmaker Vera Chytilová. The evening will come to a raucous close with a set of video mash-ups by Club Bootie resident DJs Adrian and the Mysterious D.

Friday, October 23
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard Street
7:30 pm Cinema by the Bay copresents: After Day Comes Night & After That, Day Comes Again: A Tribute to Chick Strand
Presented by San Francisco Cinematheque in association with Canyon Cinema. Introduced by Irina Leimbacher, Steve Anker, Dominic Angerame and other guests to be announced.
"Chick Strand was a longtime advocate of the art of avant-garde filmmaking and an inspiration to more than two generations of filmmakers. Canyon Cinema -- a San Francisco-based filmmakers' cooperative specializing in the distribution of avant-garde and experimental film -- was born in 1961 when Strand and Bruce Baillie began to show films outdoors in Canyon, California. Strand's spirit lives on today with the continued growth of both Canyon Cinema and San Francisco Cinematheque. Both organizations have flourished over the past 48 years, a testimony to the passion and dedication of Chick Strand. Tonight's program will include several of her films, including By the Lake,Artificial Paradise, Coming Up For Air, Loose Ends andCartoon le Mousse." --Dominic Angerame, Curator.

Saturday, October 24
Landmark's Clay Theatre, 2261 Fillmore Street
2:00 pm Shorts Program: The Bay in Depth
The Bay Area has long been a hotbed of short film production. Featuring works by several of our most compelling filmmakers, this program is a testament to the incredible depth and breadth of America's film and media frontier: All Animals (Robert Arnold, Cynthia Mitchell 2009, 16 min); Chromatic Cocktail Extra Fizzy (Kerry Laitala 2009, 9 min); From Saturday to Sunday (Natalija Vekic, Christian Bruno 2008, 4 min); I Can See Everything (John Haptas, Kristine Samuelson 2008, 5 min); Lost in the Flood (Doug Katelus 2009, 11 min); Seven after Eleven (Christina McPhee 2008, 8 min); Sparkle Plenty (Kerry Laitala 2008, 6 min); The Unmaking of I Am a Sex Addict (Caveh Zahedi 2009, 6 min). TRT 65 min.
4:15 pm Sons of a Gun
Rivkah Beth Medow, Greg O'Toole, 2009
Notions of family and dysfunction often go hand in hand, but never so vividly as in this compelling and unsettling documentary in which Larry Bobbit, an ex-LAPD hostage negotiator and surrogate dad to three middle-aged schizophrenic men, struggles to keep his family together. They've been evicted from their home and are forced to move into a cramped hotel in Alameda when things start to unravel. For 20 years, Larry has been able to provide for his "sons," but as the stresses from being uprooted build, so does Larry's intake of alcohol. Sons of a Gun is an incisive document on society's inability to accommodate mental illness and a fascinating window into the enduring bond between four unique and resilient individuals. Photographed by Rivkah Beth Medow, Greg O'Toole. 75 min.
6:30 pm Why Isn't Chris von Sneidern Famous?
Kathleen McNamara, 2009
Why do some artists garner mass adulation while others remain only cult heroes? Director Kathleen McNamara attempts to answer these questions in the aptly named, intimate portrait Why Isn't Chris von Sneidern Famous?After hearing von Sneidern -- known to his followers as CVS -- perform at Mission District hotspot Bruno's, McNamara began her quest and ended up following CVS for four years, capturing candid and funny interviews and engaging performances. Her film doesn't shy away from the poignant questions of offstage life, as CVS confronts middle age and attempts to reconcile his current station with the grand visions he and others continue to hold for him, even as dreams of rock and roll stardom begin to slip away. Photographed by Lise Swenson. 76 min.
9:00 pm Sorry, Thanks
Dia Sokol, 2009
Max glides through his days with a phlegmatic irony that would make even the hippest hipster cringe. Not always the most sensitive guy, he decides to cheat on his girlfriend with someone who has just gone through a brutal breakup. Thus begins Max's shallow odyssey of modest self-discovery. Naturally, this story is set in the Mission and stars Wiley Wiggins, who made a name for himself with a memorable turn as a put-upon teen in Richard Linklater'sDazed and Confused. This directorial debut by Dia Sokol (producer of mumblecore auteur and costar Andrew Bujalski's Beeswax) features wonderfully deadpan and honest performances and a number of hilarious -- if dark and often sad -- situations. Aimless men and women take heed: One day you may have to face yourself, and your day of reckoning may be funny-to everyone but you. Written by Dia Sokol, Lauren Veloski. Photographed by Matthias Grunsky. With Wiley Wiggins, Kenya Miles, Andrew Bujalski, Ia Hernandez. 92 min.

Sunday, October 25
Landmark's Clay Theatre, 2261 Fillmore Street
11:30 am FilmHouse Presents
A unique opportunity to get a sneak preview of some of the diverse and dynamic work being created by residents of the San Francisco Film Society's FilmHouse program, with filmmakers in attendance. This work-in-progress salon features current and past FilmHouse residents who will introduce and screen short selections from their works. Following each screening, SFFS Filmmaker Services Manager Michele Turnure-Salleo will moderate an in-depth Q&A discussion between filmmakers and the audience. This event provides an opportunity for filmmakers to engage with the public at an early stage in their projects' development and for the public to gain insight into the creative process of filmmaking. Free. FilmHouse Presents is generously supported by the San Francisco Film Commission.
2:00 pm Ghostbird
Scott Crocker, 2009
Once among the world's most spectacular birds, the ivory-billed woodpecker disappeared from the swamplands of southeastern America in the 1940s. Still, some diehard bird watchers adopted the bird as their very own Sasquatch and refused to believe that it was indeed extinct. When a kayaker claimed to have spotted an ivory-billed in Brinkley, Arkansas, some of the nation's top ornithologists launched a yearlong expedition and ultimately upgraded its status from extinct to critically endangered. Brinkley instantly became a must-visit destination for birders worldwide, and it wasn't long before the townspeople capitalized on their good fortune by touting souvenirs, haircuts and anything else that could be deemed ivory-billed. But what if the bird is extinct after all? Scott Crocker's documentary taps into the science and eccentricities of the birding world, exposing the ironies of people's relationship to the environment and each other. Photographed by Damir Frkovic. 85 min.
4:30 pm Shorts Program: It's All True
It's no secret that over the years San Francisco has produced some of the world's most compelling nonfiction films. Whether straight-ahead documentaries, experimental works or fiction/nonfiction hybrids, these shorts reveal Bay Area filmmaking at it best and most diverse: Canada (Anjali Sundaram, 2007, 9 min); Close to Home (Theo Rigby, 2008, 6 min); Four Questions for a Rabbi (Jay Rosenblatt, Stacey Ross, 2008, 11 min); The Old Spaghetti Factory (William Farley, Mal Sharpe, Sandra Sharpe, 2000, 28 min); Vivid Dreams (Jim Granato, 2008, 5 min); A Young Couple (Barry Jenkins, 2009, 13 min). TRT 72 min.
6:30 pm Etienne!
Jeff Mizushima, 2009
Richard, a rudderless albeit charming young San Francisco hotel worker, spends his quality time taking care of his beloved dwarf hamster Etienne. He dotes on his animal companion with an earnest love that borders on pathology. During a routine checkup, Richard learns that Etienne has terminal cancer. The veterinarian recommends euthanasia, but Richard decides to take Etienne on a bicycle trip down the California coast for one last adventure. Meanwhile, Elodie, a student at UC Santa Cruz, is dealing with a crushing breakup and is on her way to the City. How their stories intersect slyly reveals the film's precarious underlying tensions, between camp and melodrama. Written by Jeff Mizushima. Photographed by Tim van der Linden, Eric Kim, Jeff Mizushima. With Richard Vallejos, Megan Harvey, Molly Livingston, Matt Garron, Caveh Zahedi. 88 min.
9:00 pm The Anne McGuire Show
There's the woman who stalked Joe DiMaggio while making an experimental video. And there's the artist who perfected the genre of disaster deconstruction. And there's also the woman who uses a man's name while belting out torch songs. Only one figure can be quite so hilarious and incisive: San Francisco's own Anne McGuire. In this live variety show, McGuire's rare genius will be on full display as she draws from her extensive catalogue for an eclectic and pleasurable evening featuring some of her most famous videos, live performances, recent works, a guest MC and several surprises. With her collaborator, the electronic artist Wobbly, McGuire has long enthralled and entertained audiences with her lounge-lizard persona, Freddy McGuire. Expect an appearance by Freddy and a special rendition of the notoriously close-to-home "I Am Crazy and You're Not Wrong."

Film tickets $10 year-round SFFS members, $12.50 general, $11 seniors, students and persons with disabilities;Fall Season CineVoucher 10-Packs $90 SFFS members, $115 general; Opening Night Celebration $12 SFFS members, $15 general; A Tribute to Chick Strand $6 SFFS/SFC members, $10.00 general. Tickets available online at www.sffs.org, by calling 925.866.9559 or by faxing 925.866.9597. Advance tickets for A Tribute to Chick Strand are available only at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts at www.ybca.org or by calling 415-978-ARTS. Open September 15 for SFFS members and September 18 for the general public.

Full schedule and information: www.sffs.org.

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California Academy of Sciences' ...

Second Annual Big Bang Gala
Friday, September 25, 2009
9:00 PM to 1:00 AM

Dance under the stars and flaunt your sustainable style on the eve of the new Academy's first anniversary. Come for the stellar food and open bar, stay for DJ Nako, live entertainment by Chris Isaak, and 38,000 animals dressed to impress. Tickets are $125 and benefit the Academy's ever-evolving research and education programs.

RSVP and purchase tickets at www.calacademy.org/bigbang,
by phone 415.379.5420, or email