Cinco de Mayo fest is off in Fruitvale district, on in San Jose

Curse the local economy, whose latest cultural victim is Oakland's Fruitvale district bash for Cinco de Mayo. On the other hand, San Jose's Cinco de Mayo fiesta is still on for Sunday.

What this really gets me thinking about, though, is Carnaval. San Francisco's usual blowout is set for May 23 and 24 in my beloved former home base, the Mission District.

To whet your appetite, enjoy these pics I shot of the proceedings from a couple years back. Dare I say, they stand the test of time.

For more on Cinco de Mayo and Carnaval, check out my San Jose Culture Examiner post.

And speaking of hip hop, here comes the Chemo Kid

Giovanni Goodman, a.k.a. the Chemo Kid, is about to get mad props from the media, I bet. The Vacaville rapper popped up in my "hyphy" Google alert as an up-and-comer who's been battling cancer for about a half-decade.

The 20-something rhymer, who grew up in Queens listening to such old-school flavors as Public Enemy and De La Soul, is set to drop his debut disc, "The Chemical Chronicles," next month.

For the full story on my San Jose Culture Examiner page, CLICK HERE.

Silk Road festival set for May 2 in San Jose

Celebrate alluring Asian traditions that predate ascetic Muslim extremism at the upcoming Festival of the Silk Road, set May 2 in San Jose at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater, multiculturally enough.

For the full story on my San Jose Culture Examiner page, CLICK HERE.

Three pirates killed, U.S. captain tastes freedom, yo ho!

As you know by now, Navy SEALs cut down three seafaring rogues who kidnapped a U.S. freighter captain, ending a five-day standoff along the Somali coast between pirates and America's armed forces. Reports say the snipers busted just three caps.

I'm a pirate lore fan and found a way to explore the fascinating bygone era of anarchist seafaring societies thanks to a dearly departed East Bay pirate wares seller.

A few times, I wrote about the shop and interviewed owner Don Hatcher for the Oakland Tribune:

Despite their fierce reputation, pirates created one of the first true democracies aboard their ships, where Don said "every man got an equal say and an equal vote," and crew members were guaranteed their freedom after a certain time or a certain amount of loot had been pillaged.

The annual NorCal Pirate Festival is coming up in June at the Vallejo waterfront; get details here.

For more tidbits about pirates, the now shuttered store named SeaWolf Trading Co. and so on, CLICK HERE.

It's Hitler's world, we just live in it. Yes we do.

Google is a lot of fun for many things, but searching for rants about Obama being like Hitler has to be the greatest query of all.

Watching foam-at-the-mouth Fox News man Glenn Beck compare America's president with the scourge of 20th century Europe, obliquely, inspired me to see just how popular the rhetorical scare tactic is, now that we know Obama -- thanks to his early missteps -- is not quite Jesus.

What I learned is that he apparently has more in common with the Antichrist, according to some "critics" on the interwebz.

For all that, CLICK HERE.

If this stuff makes your head spin, try some Daily Show comic relief on the topic:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Unusual Suspect
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Chew on that, Billy Goat: Early homer for Cubs in opener

Whether you love the Giants, the A's or even the Cubs,
share your disdain for the Yankees through this classic
T-shirt or poster by BustedTees. Sorry, Matt Artz.

No sooner had the season begun than leadoff Cubs hitter Alfonso Soriano clobbered the second pitch he saw into the Astros' stands.

Whether you're an expat Chicago fan like me or just a root-root-rooter for the underdog, you gotta have faith that the early homer is a good omen for the all-time also-rans of Major League Baseball.

The Giants and A's have nothing on the lovable losers, stadium controversies notwithstanding. More on that later.

Just in case you haven't the faintest interest in non-Bay Area hardball lore, the Cubbies have failed to make it to World Series since 1945 and haven't won it all since 1908.

That's two years after the great San Francisco earthquake and six years before the start of World War I.

Legend has it that the curse of the Billy Goat is responsible for the Cubs' continuing slide into ignominy. Even the Boston Red Sox have a less pathetic losing streak.

Completely Used up By September, indeed.

Here's one telling of the curse and subsequent setbacks such as a black cat in the dugout and, of course, that unsavory Steve Bartman incident, courtesy of writer James Lincoln Ray.

In my fantasy, poetic justice holds that when the Cubs finally do return to glory and win the World Series, it will be at the disgrace of the Yankees, the most unlovable team in all of baseball.

So what if they have a fancy new stadium? Nothing tops the heart and soul of the time-honored bricks and ivy of Wrigley Field -- even if that blabbermouth pitcher Zambrano recently gave comfort to the enemy:

“You come into a ballpark like this and you see great things,” the Cubs ace told The Associated Press on Saturday before his team’s 10-1 exhibition loss at the sparkling ballpark in the Bronx. “You wish that Chicago’d build a new stadium for the Cubs."

Cub fans are used to getting smacked around, but by their own pitcher? Sigh.

Speaking of building new stadiums, it looks like Fremont is out for a new A's home, while San Jose is picking up steam as the hot spot for the team to relocate to, even if it currently is Giants territory.

Meanwhile, although it's been in the 70s and clear around the Bay, it snowed in the Windy City yesterday. Talk about tough breaks.

Go Northsiders. Next year is here.

For more info: Check out Examiner.com domination of opening day. Make sure if you ever visit Chicago, you pay respects at the Billy Goat Tavern. Cheezborger!

Adios, E.R., thanks for the literary TV in a sea of 'reality' swill

The most sinister and one of the most enjoyable
chracters on E.R. was brought to life by Paul McCrane,
who also directed some episodes. Photo by NBC.

Did you get excited about the finale of E.R., or are you one of those "I stopped watching long ago" naysayers?

Regardless of whether the show jumped the shark with the helicopter-crash killing of brilliant bad guy Dr. Romano, it was always about character development and emotional resonance first, not just slam-bang rating grabs.

It took me a while to get into E.R., but when this Chicago native caught the bug, he fell hard.

It was while I was living alone in a chilly, remote locale to work a so-so job and feeling utterly unsure of the future that I saw some back-to-back reruns late at night.

That let me follow the evolution of the characters and their myriad subplots in a way I likely never would have if I just happened to see occasional weekly episodes.

On the other hand, that first helicopter accident involving Romano -- really a secret weapon for the show, someone the audience could root against in a satisfying way and thereby sympathize with everyone else, his victims -- that fixed my attention on the series for good.

Parminder Nagra helped bring alive the stories on
E.R. with her cerebral portrayal of Dr. Neela Rasgotra,
who wasn't shy about workplace love. Photo by NBC.

After I discovered the minor miracle of the DVR, I managed to catch up on the entire series and really became a devotee.

Nevermind that the reruns appeared on a women's lifestyle-marketed network. Lots of Joy dishwashing liquid commercials and such, for sure.

If I had to pick a character I empathize with the most, I'd say it was Neela (played by Parminder Nagra), whose ambivalence about her life -- and love -- choices and "stuck in her head" struggle felt very familiar.

We even both were exiled to Michigan for a while. And we're drawn to Louisiana, for different reasons.

If I had to pick one episode that encapsulated the believable subtlety of the actors in a wildly entertaining storyline that showed the range of the writers and producers, I'd say it was when Drs. Carter and Kovac worked in Africa:

If I had to pick one weakness of the series, it was the patients. Their portrayal never was up to par with the regular cast's ability, and it was the hospital staffers who carried the emotional weight of the show anyway. How distracting they had to heal all those complaining sickies.

I had the pleasure of interviewing a local actress who landed a minor role on the show several years ago, although I never got around to interviewing Redwood City native Linda Cardellini, who played nurse Samantha Taggart for a surprising run, given how the chicas seemed to come and go in a revolving-door fashion.

Anyway, the one I did get on the phone, Giovannie Espiritu (a.k.a. Pico), was a blip on the radar of E.R. in the long run, but she lent her brief starpower to the cause of domestic-violence prevention, as recorded in this snippet of a San Mateo County Times article about a 2007 relationship seminar at a South City church:

Giovannie Pico, a TV actor who lives in San Bruno with her 6-year-old son and other relatives, will host Saturday's event. The Filipina said the religious setting is important to her because of her own experience dealing with an abusive partner.

"I was told by church members that I needed to pray harder," she said, "or that I was supposed to submit to my husband. It's really like a change in tide in the way that the church is talking about domestic violence."

Pico, 28, has appeared on "ER" and "Bones" and has an upcoming role in "Gilmore Girls," is directing a Tagalog version of "The Vagina Monologues" on March 24 at the Herbst Theatre. The 28-year- old said focusing on the Filipino community is part of a broader effort to educate people about abuse.

"There's a lot of shame that's surrounding it," Pico said. "I was in a relationship that was domestically violent, and I didn't even know. I didn't know what a healthy relationship looked like."

It may not be a healthy relationship to fall in love with a TV show either. E.R. eventually led to crushes on The Shield and Lost and Mad Men, and so it goes. Yet I will always have a soft spot for County General Hospital and its nuanced, lifelike, downright literary cast of characters.

Thanks for that respite from the worries of real life, if only for an hour a week.

For more info: Finally, the official NBC site for E.R. has full episodes you can watch online and avoid the Joy dishwashing liquid interruptions. Chuck Barney at the Contra Costa Times wrote a nice send-off to the series, noting the litany of character hookups that kept us wondering whom Neela would neck with next.

Check out my other blog as the intrepid San Jose Culture Examiner.

Auto news round-up, including mad-as-heck Michigan

Monday was a big day for auto-related news, as you probably noticed.

Nationally, the media buzzed about President Obama's restructuring demands for General Motors and Chrysler, lest he steer them into bankruptcy.

All the crummy economic news is taking its toll, not least on laid-off workers in the car industry. Recently, there was a beat-down at a Michigan GM dealership that unexpectedly closed.

Employees apparently had a liquid lunch and funneled their anger at each other. The fun was captured by a lucky news crew and is out on YouTube: CLICK HERE FOR THE SMACKDOWN FOOTAGE.

I used to work as a newspaper reporter in frigid southwest Michigan. Good place to be from.

Mercury News contracts to core readership; will you notice?

If you're like me and, I bet, most other blog readers, you get your news for free online, so the death of newspapers is a largely abstract concept in your everyday life.

For what it's worth, the San Jose Mercury News, once one of the proudest daily papers in the land, will no longer deliver on weekdays to readers in San Francisco or other "outlying areas." Ultimately that means less funding for reporters and fewer news stories produced in any depth.

I suppose one could ask, if a forest once fell to provide the daily distribution medium for newspaper publishing, and all the unemployed journalists end up living as homeless wildmen in the treeless barrens, will anyone reading blogs on their PDAs notice?

CLICK HERE FOR MORE.

Top three Replacements songs that should be household hits

This is a tricky post to write, because the Replacements had no hits to begin with, and because you more than likely heard of the band before you ever heard their tunes on the radio.

Decades (almost) after their dissolution, fresh evidence of their greatness is on a slew of reissues of their ouevre, a treatment that Billboard magazine says closes the book on the band's also-ran history.

But they were supposed to have several megahits, albeit not necessarily the most raw, passionate, melodic, uncompromising cuts they waxed in their artistic prime.

As an aside, for comparison, the three hits they were supposed to easily have notched are:

1. Achin' to Be
2. I'll Be You
3. The Ledge

The first song I would call a coulda-been, shoulda-been anthem for moody teens across the land back in the day, but because of mismarketing and blah blah blah, it didn't happen.

The next song was a hot track during the band's tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, who at the time were superstar rockers while the Replacements were the little underground engine that could, then didn't. Petty famously plagiarized the line "rebel without a clue" from the song, penned by Paul Westerberg.

The third song, for some insane reason, got a video produced that, in classic alternative-rock-snotty fashion, had nothing very kinetic going on in it -- an anti-video that Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam likely still envies. Bizarrely, I can't find a YouTube clip of the memorable nonsense, although this New York Times blog includes it.

But I digress.

The three Replacements songs that should be required teaching in schools of rock from coast to coast are:

1. Nowhere Is My Home
2. Color Me Impressed
3. Bastards of Young

The first song was a bona fide sing-along for teen-and-upward lost souls to shout out madly, "Nowhere -- that's my home!" I can't find video footage to stick in here, tragically. You can sample it on Amazon.

The second song was a lost track on the ridiculously misnamed Hootenanny, which I figured at the time was a sad effort at connecting with some sorry-ass folk-music fans. Really, it just means a good jamming time to be had by all. Oh, well.

The third song every Replacements fan knows and loves, but I needed something to round out the list. "Bastards" is as catchy as anything the group did.

What the heck, here's another dose of the mighty 'Mats doing it up right:

Runners up to both lists, which are shamelessly subjective and unabashedly biased, are Can't Hardly Wait, Here Comes a Regular, I Will Dare, Unsatisfied, Androgynous (that was a ballsy song to write in the obnoxious hardcore-punk scene of yesteryear), Left of the Dial (of course!), Talent Show ("We're feeling good from the pills we took"), etc., etc., and so forth.

Ah, lest we forget all those "lip-synch chicks."

Then there's the matter of Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, the first Replacements album I really connected with -- but that a pal of mine dismissed as "really punk" in a snide way.

And there was heroin use and commercial self-sabotage.

Followed later, of course, by Westerberg's transcendant solo albums that are still coming.

Wow, what a band. You gotta love 'em. Bow down, today's emo weiners, bow down. Here's where you can find most of these tracks in one place.

For more info: Good god, get knowledgeable, will ya? Here's a thorough analysis of the 'Mats career in a 2008 Spin article. This recent write-up by Magnet magazine agrees with at least one of my underrated picks.

Visit my "pro" blog, San Jose Culture Examiner.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Hindu rights report slams Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia

In a previous life, my daily news beat included covering the Hindu American Foundation, which puts out an annual report on rights abuses commited against Hindus worldwide.

The nonprofit group was cofounded by a Bay Area E.R. doctor and now is based near Washington, D.C., to raise political awareness of the struggles of the Hindu diaspora.

The latest report on 2008 troubles focuses on nine countries, including Malaysia.

I enjoyed covering the coalescing of a local expat protest movement against Malaysia's ethnic favoritism, which at the time centered on a Yahoo chat group called Bay Area Malaysian Indians.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Glory be, 'tis once again St. Patty's Day

In glorious ol' Chicago, St. Patrick's Day means the dyein' green
of the Chicago River. And a wee bit o' green beer drinking.
Image by Mathprog777.

St. Patrick's Day snuck right up on me. Must be something about saying farewell to copious ale consumption once you reach middle age. In vino veritas, indeed.

In Chicago, where I'm from, the Irish holiday means guzzling green brewskies and acting a damn fool all over town. Officials also ensure that the Chicago River's color matches the mythic fields of clover dotting the Emerald Isle.

In the old country, denizens of one village are drinking in the media's focus on their generations-past tie to Barack O'Bama, "whose great-great-great-grandfather on his mother's side was a cobbler from Moneygall," says one bankrupt newspaper.

In San Jose, why not read up on a special investigation into public drunkenness to celebrate St. Patrick? After all, the missionary helped take all the fun out of claiming Druidic ancestry.

I mean, now we have Catholics versus Protestants? Beglory! Give me Irish (and Angles, etc.) versus Vikings any day:

In San Francisco, of course, there is no end to the supply of dank, dingy pubs where you can toast the death of pagan gods in Celtic lands. The Chronicle recently gave its take on where to wander for your whiskey.

My tradition as a Mission District dweller was to imbibe corned beef and cabbage at Cha Cha Cha, once a garishly lit Irish pub called Original McCarthy's filled with holdouts from the neighborhood's whiter days.

There's also the lilt of Irish music to put a smile on your mug, as might befall you if you venture into the Tenderloin to hear Culann's Hounds, or perhaps play it safer out in the avenues to hear Andrew MacNamara.

Back in Chicago, one writerly wag was so concerned about the disconnect between the literal point of St. Patrick's Day, honoring a Christianizing influence, and the celebration's execution that she suggests the date might better be called Shamrock Day.

As long as we can pressure McDonald's to sell charitable Shamrock Shakes, it could be a great opportunity for synergy.

Anyway, Erin go braugh. Just try to keep yer teeth in yer head, aye?

For more info: Legend has it that St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, but that's just a metaphor for the routing of Celtic religion, according to this screed.

This post first appeared on my other blog, where my identity is the San Jose Culture Examiner.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Taliban gang arrests continue, no new word on Hoodstarz connection

Where are all the reporters to follow up on this story? Oh, right, they're laid off. Oops. CLICK HERE for more.

Todd en Español -- a first, methinks

It seems that an article I wrote last month for The Californian newspaper in Salinas was edited for their weekly El Sol edition, printed in Spanish. Because I speak barely a smattering of Deutsch outside my native English, I feel flattered to have been officially translated into a second language.

Now if only my fluency with the Latino community extended beyond such urgent pharase "Mas cerveza por favor" and "El baño! Emergencia! Rapido!"

Their site seems to be having issues, so I link here to the Google cached version of the original article en Español.

----

"Mural celebra trabajo de braceros:

Proyecto en oficinas del distrito de Alisal enseña ‘lo que hacen muchas manos’"

Por Todd R. Brown Para El Sol, 27 Febrero 2009

El papel que jugaron los braceros en darle forma al centro agrícola de Salinas y a otros centros del oeste es más sutil de lo que puede comunicar un monumento público.

En esencia, los trabajadores mexicanos que trabajaron duro en los campos de la región de la década de 1940 a la de 1960 ayudaron a construir una parte de la estructura social del Condado de Monterey en la era moderna.

El lunes por la mañana, Rafael Silva, de 75 años y vecino de Salinas, habló de su contribución a la historia americana como bracero de Jalisco. Silva habló durante la inauguración del “Nuestros Braceros Mural”, que está siendo pintado con la ayuda de estudiantes en una pared de la oficina del Distrito Escolar Alisal Union.

Silva dijo que sus siete hijos son ahora secretarias, maestros, doctores y abogados que contribuyen a la economía del Tío Sam.

Cerca de 30 alumnos y muchos adultos presenciaron un programa para celebrar el inicio del proyecto de pintura, disfrutaron la música del Mariachi Salinas y una visita del Supervisor del condado Simón Salinas.

Se animó a los estudiantes para que llevaran a sus abuelos braceros, y muchos de ellos asistieron y tomaron asiento en las primeras filas.

El mural es una forma de reconocer a los braceros, quienes vinieron para remediar la escasez de mano de obra de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y continuaron trabajando hasta que el programa finalizó oficialmente en 1964. En total se otorgaron aproximadamente 4.5 millones de contratos.

“Estos hombres, al venir aquí, ¿cuántos líderes y profesionales le dieron a Estados Unidos? Yo no creo que hayan recibido crédito por ello”, dijo Laura Caballero, de Greenfield, coordinadora de los voluntarios del mural.

Después de una plática de historia en español, los estudiantes tomaron sus pinceles y se dirigieron al exterior de la oficina del distrito para pintar de verde la parte inferior del mural, que incluye escenas de la cosecha, y en forma alarmante, una fila de trabajadores que están siendo fumigados antes de dirigirse a los campos.

El artista mexicano Rafael Ramírez dijo que incluyó la imagen para asegurarse de que la gente “pueda ver que eso sucedió”, mientras apuntaba a una fotografía en la que basó la escena. En ella se puede ver a un capataz con una máscara quirúrgica que rocía la cabeza de los trabajadores desnudos con una nube química.

José María Núñez, de 70 años y residente de Salinas dijo que fue bracero a partir de 1958 y siguió trabajando en los campos hasta hace cinco años, asegurando con ello que la lechuga, el brócoli, la coliflor, las uvas, los duraznos y más llegaran a los anaqueles de las tiendas.

“En esos tiempos, a mí me gustaba todo”, dijo por medio de un intérprete. “La alegría estaba en hacer el trabajo”.

Pero había inconvenientes, por supuesto. Además de los capataces que trataban mal a los trabajadores, dijo Núñez, no había baños, y de cualquier forma tampoco había descansos en que pudieran utilizarlos. Núñez declaró que ganaba 90 centavos por hora y trabajaba los siete días de la semana, desde el mes de marzo hasta noviembre o diciembre.

Ashley Collins, de 15 años y estudiante de la Escuerla Preparatoria Alisal, ayudó a los estudiantes más jóvenes a pintar. Collins dijo que su madre está dedicada a lograr justicia para los braceros que aún están luchando por obtener parte de la paga que se les retuvo de sus cheques.

El dinero se mantuvo en bancos mexicanos como un incentivo para atraer de vuelta a los trabajadores, pero los fondos supuestamente “desaparecieron”. Recientemente, un tribunal federal llegó a un acuerdo que permitirá que 6,100 braceros cobren $3,500 cada uno, si pueden documentar su participación.“Es bueno ver cómo hicieron todos los esfuerzos por hacer lo correcto”, dijo Ashley acerca de la fortaleza de los braceros.

Esperanza Zendejas, superintendente del distrito de Alisal, dijo que su padre y dos de sus hermanos fueron braceros provenientes de Michoacán, que llegaron al “Golden State” a trabajar para los agricultores de cítricos y los viñedos.

“Esto abrió muchas puertas”, dijo Zendejas, y añadió acerca de su padre: “Él vio lo que podía llegar a ser. Como resultado de ello, todos acabamos viviendo en Estados Unidos”.
Viendo como los estudiantes habían avanzado en el mural, Zendejas exclamó: “Ve eso. Lo que hacen muchas manos”.

El próximo año, dijo Zendejas, espera hacer que el Instituto Smithsoniano traiga la exposición llamada “Bittersweet Harvest — The Bracero Program, 1942-1964”. La exhibición itinerante comienza el mes de septiembre en Washington, D.C.

Zendejas declaró que todos los estudiantes del distrito y sus padres pueden ayudar a pintar el pintar el mural, de 9:00 a 11:00 A.M., el sábado, en la oficina, localizada en la calle Market #1205, en Salinas.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS contribuyó a este reportaje.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Readers question facts of Scoot Dogg arrest story

According to a couple commenters on my post yesterday about the widely reported arrest of East Palo Alto rapper Scoot Dogg in a weekend gang sweep, the facts do not add up.

I have to come clean about this: I did not check the facts of the matter personally. Because I am mostly an unpaid blogger, not a full-time reporter, I relied on articles by professional journalists who are responsible for checking their facts prior to publication.

Anyway, although I was quoting articles by other journalists, I am not off the hook if I perpetuate inaccurate information. If the facts in my earlier blog post are wrong, whereever I got them, I am sorry.

The truly important thing to keep in mind, of course, is that all of the suspects arrested in the Bay Area-wide sweep of the Taliban gang are still suspects, innocent until proven guilty -- if they even have their day in court.

CLICK HERE for the full story.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Local rapper faces 'Hood Reality' in Taliban gang raid

A local rapper I once interviewed was snared in a gang raid in East Palo Alto and Menlo Park.

Dontae Gardner, who goes by the handle Scoot Dogg as part of the hip hop crew Dem Hoodstarz, was one of dozens of suspected Taliban gang members who got a police escort Saturday up outta the 'hood.

Here's part of my 2006 article on the pair that I wrote for the San Mateo County Times:

"My reality is having to go sit on a corner to sell some rocks to have food to feed my mom," said Scoot, who grew up in Midtown. "We living in the gutter. A lot of us have to make the decision to eat or go to school."

Scoot said the "hood reality" he raps was all around him, and he wound up spending 18 months with the California Youth Authority for gun and drug possession.

"The life that we see? I can't rap about me and my family sitting down to dinner and passing the cornbread and passing the peas," he said. "It ain't all peaches and cream where we from."

CLICK HERE for more on this story.

Also, check out a KTVU TV news report about the arrests here.

San Jose Culture Examiner: 'The Kite Runner' play set to premiere in San Jose

Khaled Hosseini's kick-ass book became a so-so movie, but now it has another shot at visual transcendence.

In my opinion, the cinematic rendition suffered from a colossal error of omission: the author's unique, emotionally loaded voice.

The heart of the novel was the narrator's inner struggle -- his painful coming to terms with his past sin, and finding the courage to make amends.

The psychological journey he goes through carries the reader from page to page and charges the events of the book with a personal resonance.

The movie excised the storyteller's voice, and the literal result didn't give any reason to sympathize with the main character.

CLICK HERE for more.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Gay marriage protest evokes 'Milk' memorial march

Having recently seen Milk, which I was impressed to hear that my center-right dad thought was "incredible," I was struck by how yesterday's march to overturn Proposition 8 mirrored the massive protest of Harvey Milk's killing at the end of the movie.

The people who assembled Wednesday evening in the Castro and strode to Civic Center carried the same message that the slain political icon championed: "You gotta give 'em hope."

The DVD of the Oscar-caliber movie comes out Tuesday (no pun intended).

CLICK HERE for more.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Cow Palace losing footing but ropes in tattoo con again

So the Body Art Expo that features "hot babes" returns this weekend to its historic local venue, the Cow Palace in Daly City.

Through the years, the space hosted roller derby matches, Sharks and Warriors games, a Republican National Convention and many rock concerts, including a fairly awesome Smashing Pumpkins show I enjoyed back in ... 1996? Really? Glory days, indeed.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Enter the dragon at the Asian Art Museum

Buddhist works from Bhutan feature tantric gods with superstar bods, and fiery consorts who cavort without shorts.

Bear in mind this wisdom from Alex Comfort, author of The Joy of Sex, who said of his boldly libertine view of love and lust "that there is nothing to be afraid of, and never was, and that we manufacture our own nonsenses."

CLICK HERE for more.