Uranus, Jupiter, its three moons and Euro porn

"Dave" looking at Uranus and Jupiter. Midnight on Van Ness and Eddy.

This was a weird evening. I almost feel compelled to tell its story in reverse, but that's just a little too "Momento"-ish. Almost everyone I know was attending the opening night of SFO's The Marriage of Figaro starring the ridiculously gorgeous Danielle de Niese. This was originally my plan too, via a $10 standing room ticket (for the first act only, of course), because frankly I'm just not that into Mozart's operas and unless it's Cosi or a particularly well-cast Don Giovanni I really don't care. But I'm something of a completist and I'll see it standing room at some point solely so I can throw my opinion online like everyone else. Well that and I do want to hear de Niese.

That was the plan, at least until the Femme Fatale proposed that I join her to see the "Sexy Euro Cinema" program at the Red Vic, which is part of the Good Vibrations Indie Erotic Film Festival. Now that's a dilemma, is it not? I figured I could see Figaro almost anytime so I agreed and we met at the Vidal Sassoon salon where she was getting her hair done. I always wondered who got their hair done here.  From there we boarded Muni and proceeded to wait and wait and wait while someone was expiring at the Church St. station. Oh, not good people, not good.

We get off Muni and make our way to Haight St. to grab a bite beforehand, deciding to go to Zona Rosa, where a bunch of undercover cops are busting a fairly large group of drug dealers. Dealers are so dumb. The Femme ordered a beer with dinner, which was kind of shocking to me because she has the most sophisticated wine palate of anyone I've ever met. After that, we went next door to Alembic for a cocktail. I ordered a slight variation of my usual, and a Sazerac for her. She liked it.

Then we go next door (again) to the Red Vic, which I haven't been to in years. Seems like it's a lot spiffier (in a Red Vic way, that is) than I remember it, which is back when they had actual couches. Had I known the Vic is now almost a real movie theater I might have gone to Figaro instead. I mean I'm not a porn guy to begin with, so sitting in an actual seat to watch the stuff isn't my idea of time well spent.

A woman from Good Vibrations comes out and explains the program and some other hype kind of stuff. There will be 7 films from 5 countries, to be then followed by a screening of a film called Matinee. The director of Matinee, Jennifer Lyon Bell is on hand and will conduct a Q & A after the screening. Good grief, this is weird. Really? A Q & A about a porn film?

The shorts start with "Headshot," an homage to an Andy Warhol film the title of which begins with "blow" and ends with "job." It's actually pretty clever in that you never see anything except the young man's reaction to what's being done to him. Thankfully for the audience and the unseen other member of the cast, it's not all that long and avoids being tiresome and in some moments is pretty damn funny. Then we're stuck with a series of short films featuring tattooed and pierced young people with dirty fingernails in shorts that run about ten minutes long apiece. While I was appreciative of the fact that none of the performers had undergone plastic surgery nor looked like they spent every waking moment at the gym when they weren't snorting coke, aesthetically it got boring pretty fast.

Now allow me to interject that the theater was completely packed. Almost every seat taken by groups, couples and the random old pervy guy 10 or 20 years older than myself and everyone is munching on popcorn. It was almost like watching a documentary on Chomsky. Well, it was like that at least until the moment the guy next to me opened a can of beer and of course the images on screen were different than those seen in Manufacturing Consent. Oddly, the theater was growing very warm. I'm not sure why, but I was starting to sweat. I grew weary of this and was pretty much done with it all. At intermission I wanted to leave.

I told the Femme this and she asked if I had watched the trailer for Matinee, to which I replied in the negative. She convinced me to at least watch a bit of it and then, if I didn't care for it, we could leave, as she wasn't too impressed either but was very interested to see this particular film. I agreed out of a chivalric impulse and not much else.

Matinee is an interesting film about two stage actors who are doing an intimate scene in a play together and they both know isn't working as well as it should. They are told before the matinee performance that a very important talent agent is attending that afternoon. It's like a porn version of Waiting for Guffman. Their futures may ride on this one performance. The male actor tries to talk the female into loosening it up a bit with a bit of pre-performance improv. She declines, thinking it unprofessional but then at the last moment, before their scene, she has a change of heart and decides to take the scene to another level the actor could never have seen coming. This is pretty interesting to watch because the actors are mature (and tattoo and piercing free) and you can actually see the thoughts in their eyes as they convey to each other "are we really going to do this? Here? Now? In front of an audience?" Yes, they do and after awhile they seem to forget this is happening on a stage and I forgot they were actors. Good job people! Art requires giving everything of oneself! It's pretty provocative, explicit, and I have to admit it won me over.

After leaving the theater, the Femme is in a funk because the whole Cinderella/nasty-stepfather/turning into a pumpkin issue looms before her and we end up taking this enormous walk from the Haight to the Castro, where I take my leave of her, watching  as she runs off to catch a bus to the castle on High Street. From there I hit the street, stopping into the Lucky 13 to listen to some Iggy and ponder exactly what is going on here. Then Dr. Hank texts me , writing that Figaro was great, Danielle is fantastic and that he's now going home because he has to work tomorrow and cannot have a drink with me. Fine, I say to myself, and continue on the journey home.

At the corner of Eddy and Van Ness I espy a man on the corner with a telescope. Now, if you were outside on this evening you couldn't help notice the waxing moon on a warm night with cloud wisps scurrying past it constantly. It was beautiful.. I turn and look over my shoulder and sure enough the man has his telescope trained on the moon and what is obviously a planet in plain view to its left. At Van Ness and Eddy- at midnight. This is odd, even for San Francisco.

"Is that Venus?" I ask him.

"No, it's Jupiter," he replies.

"Really?" says I, thinking Jupiter should be full of color while this planet is plainly white like Venus.

"Yes" says he, "Would you like to take a look?"

I  say yes and look into what he describes as a "cheap" telescope he doesn't mind having out on the street next to the Tenderloin as the hour approaches midnight and see not only Jupiter, but three of its moons and Uranus crystal clear. It was fantastic.

The astronomer, whose name is Dave, then proceeded to give me a bit of information on which planets appear when and where. It was all very interesting, not the least because it was happening in this most unusual circumstance, at this most unusual place. Thank you Dave, that was a truly magical moment.

From there I continued my walk home, past the Great American Music Hall, where someone who draws a very large audience of young women was playing, past the dealers, past the whores, returning safely to the reality of my small apartment and strange cat.

And there you are!