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Feature

The Counter-Counterculture

Ah, to be young and Republican at Cal

By Bernice Yeung

Published: May 12, 2004

Andrea Irvin's college bedroom is at once a suburban schoolgirl mecca and a shrine to the Republican Party. The UC Berkeley junior, who studies business and economics, has affixed a neat row of...

Dog Bites

Grapes, Without the Wrath

We read "Grape," the Chron's "serial saga," so you don't have to and uncover the world champion of pizza acrobatics

Overheard by Matt Palmquist

Published: May 12, 2004

For more than a month, the San Francisco Chronicle has devoted a section of its Datebook cover to a daily installment of "Grape," a self-proclaimed "serial saga," two years in the works, that...

News

Letters and the Editor

Messages from a repellent AIDS "activist" and other items of interest, put in self-serving context by Weekly Editor John Mecklin

Published: May 12, 2004

Secret Service As you may or may not have noticed, our Dog Bites column has a relatively new MC -- the incomparable Matt Palmquist -- who has over the last few months filed its teeth, added...

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Week of Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Published: May 12, 2004

Secret Service (from editor John Mecklin) As you may or may not have noticed, our Dog Bites column has a relatively new MC -- the incomparable Matt Palmquist -- who has over the last few...

Music

Pimp My Rock

The French Kicks refashion the sound of Brooklyn on their innovative new album

By Nate Cavalieri

Published: May 12, 2004

Beware the ugly lights. They come on after last call, when the weary bartender flips a switch. Just like that, the unforgiving, fluorescent glow of reality slaughters the dusky charm of your...

Reviewed

Jolie Holland

Escondida

By Mike Rowell

Published: May 12, 2004

San Francisco singer/songwriter Jolie Holland's 2003 debut album, Catalpa , was a collection of hazy demos that nevertheless won the acclaim of critics worldwide. Now we have her first proper...

Reviewed

The Real Tuesday Weld

I, Lucifer

By Dan Strachota

Published: May 12, 2004

Men adopt different personas to try to get women to sleep with them, but none is as guileful as the "wounded genius" -- the kind of guy whose illustrious talents have been crushed by love. Londoner...

Reviewed

Wiley

Treddin' on Thin Ice

By Philip Sherburne

Published: May 12, 2004

U.K. garage superproducer Wiley's rise to the spotlight, right behind his erstwhile collaborator Dizzee Rascal, has made him, of all things, quite defensive. "Goodbye to the fingers pointing at...

Reviewed

Van Hunt

Van Hunt

By Christopher O'Connor

Published: May 12, 2004

Atlanta's Van Hunt is the latest R&B; singer/songwriter being compared to Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, and all the others you'd expect. Frankly, the modern-day soul-master tag is tiresome, a...

OK Then

Monster Mash Up

DJs Z Trip and P deliver the final performance of Uneasy Listening Vol. One, one of the first – and best – album-length mash-ups

By Garrett Kamps

Published: May 12, 2004

The last year has been a good one for the mash-up, that DIY form of culture-mulching in which anyone with an Internet connection can download two songs plus the software to splat them together and...

Hear This

Hear This

Break out the Pucker shots and vomit bags: Camper Van Beethoven is turning 21

By Nate Cavalieri

Published: May 12, 2004

More often than not, 21st birthdays are graceless disasters. Nine out of 10 of us suffer the final passage into adulthood with ghastly alcoholic binging, just to wake the next morning with a...

BeatBox

BeatBox

Berlin's Ellen Allien spins warm-fuzzy techno; "Breakbeat Agency" rocks the House of Shields

By Nate Cavalieri, Brock Keeling

Published: May 12, 2004

With the House of Shields' old-fashioned Victorian fixtures, glossy tiled floor, and ostentatious old bar, you might expect to hear, say, an easy listening-ish jazz trio pumping out some smooth...

Eat

Obsession Junction

Fishing with Morgan Spurlock, survivor of the 30-day McDonald's diet

By Meredith Brody

Published: May 12, 2004

I liked Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me even more than I thought I would. From its first shot -- a bunch of cute kids singing a campy song with the refrain "I like food/ You like food/...

Social Grace

Uninvited Guests

How to be the bigger person when your relatives are jerks

By Social Grace

Published: May 12, 2004

Dear Social Grace, My husband and I have been married for 13 years. He has two married, adult children from his first marriage. The relationship between his children and me is less than...

Film

Lazy Like a Foxx

Breakin' All the Rules packs all the fun of a mediocre sitcom

By Luke Y. Thompson

Published: May 12, 2004

If even one of the major networks had a successful sitcom in the vein of Friends but with an all-black cast, movies like Breakin' All the Rules would have no reason for existence. Part of an...

Film

Strife Is Beautiful

Yes, it's another waning-samurai film, but this one is brilliant

By Melissa Levine

Published: May 12, 2004

Samurai have never been strangers to film; in fact, an entire genre has sprung from their legend, with plenty of attendant offshoots, cross-pollinators, and beneficiaries (westerns, slasher films,...

Film

Pitt and the Pabulum

Brad's ripped and The Iliad's shredded in the scintillating spectacle Troy

By Bill Gallo

Published: May 12, 2004

In the mood to launch a thousand ships? Fine, but it's gonna cost you. Feel like sacking the Temple of Apollo? OK, but bring drachmas. Depending on who's counting, Warner Bros.' pre-summer...

Reps Etc.

Reps Etc.

Published: May 12, 2004

Commentary by Gregg Rickman ( greggr1@mindspring.com ). Times compiled from information available Tuesday; it's always advisable to call for confirmation. Price given is standard adult admission;...

Night&Day;

Back to the Future

A stair-climbing humanoid robot, a power-assist suit, and a mind-control device, at NextFest

By Jane Tunks

Published: May 12, 2004

When we pondered the new millennium in the antediluvian 20th century, we thought the future would be a technological dream-world, with robotic dogs that would live forever, gourmet meals that could...

Night&Day;

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Published: May 12, 2004

Wednesday, May 12, 2004 The newest music sensation that's sweeping the nation must have the record industry wishing like hell for the days of mere online file pirating. The art form known as...