Local director Jennifer M. Kroot delves into the bizarre minds and movies of underground filmmakers (and twin brothers) George and Mike Kuchar, in her new film It Came From Kuchar, which plays at the Red Vic Movie House June 14 and 15.

The Kuchar brothers’ films are wacky and wild, never attempting to be commercially successful, but rather exploring the under side of filmmaking with campy romps starring large-eyebrowed protagonists, lit by rainbow colored lighting.

“It Came From Kuchar is about the legendary underground filmmaking twins, George and Mike Kuchar,” Kroot said during a recent interview at Reverie coffeeshop on Cole Street. “They grew up in the Bronx in the ‘50s, and became obsessed with the 1950s melodramas that were playing in the theaters at the time.”

The brothers borrowed their aunt’s 8mm camera and started making their own homemade movies, which were eerie and strange, and yet somehow still reflected the mainstream movies of the time.

Actor Bob Cowan starred in a lot of their early films, and he introduced them to some of the underground movie scene. The Kuchar brothers eventually found their way into the New York City underground film scene, along with people like Andy Warhol, who had a much more serious, yet just as bizarre, take on movie making.

“People didn’t know how to handle them at first, but they became accepted in the scene. And I think their films were also funny,” author and film curator Jack Stevenson says in Kroot’s documentary. “Many of the other films weren’t funny. Filmmakers were making more formalist films and structural films where very little happened. Warhol was making films where nothing happened. George and Mike were making films that reflected Hollywood where everthing happened.”

They became beloved by underground filmmakers like John Waters, and many of their films are still shown in film schools today.

George Kuchar moved to San Francisco in the ‘70s, and began to teach at the San Francisco Art Institute. He has now taught film at the Art Institute for almost 40 years. Both brothers now live in the same apartment in the Mission.

“They continue to make movies. They work on video now, but they only work with consumer grade products. It’s kind off punk rock,” Kroot said. “George was a pioneer of video diaries, which you now see all over You Tube.”

The Kuchar brothers are also self-taught artists, and Mike had a successful stint as the artist of a comic series called Gay Heart Throbs.
Kroot’s film is a touching and funny look at two eccentric San Francisco filmmakers, who are genuine iconic characters themselves.

It Came From Kuchar will be playing at the Red Vic Movie House on June 14 and 15.

Artists Television Access will also be presenting a show of recent work by Mike Kuchar on Saturday, June 5 at 8 p.m. at 992 Valencia Street.

For more information on the work of filmmaker Jennifer M. Kroot visit www.kucharfilm.com.

William Francis Sheehan, known by friends as Waterfall, and by his family as Bill, arrived at 12:20 p.m. on 25th December, 1944 and caught the bus at 2:15 p.m. on 27th February, 2010. His loving parents were William Francis Sheehan and Esther Coll Sheehan.

How to go gently into the night…

The day of Waterfall’s big shift was the Saturday of the full moon with a Jupiter ascendant – it was a good day to travel, so I heard. An unruly crowd of respectful friends and friendly family came to see him off, with the tender help of Drs. Brad Sharpe, McGee and Kara Bischoff and the staff at UCSF, who advised and made Waterfall’s journey as comfortable as possible. Many thanks to all who worked so long, dedicated to helping create a spiritually honest passing.

With us all standing around, he asked for the bed head to be raised, and waved the curtain open, the better to see the view of the Marin headlands.

At the beginning of his journey Waterfall showed brave Viking spirit – he was the Irish King off to Valhalla, the Buddhist wise man, saying his prayers, waving his rattle, leading us all in a chanted Om and singing his favorite songs. He went graciously courageous, fully aware of his going; surrounded by loving family and friends. His sister Joan said he just stopped breathing, a peaceful face.

For many of us it was the most moving and truthful event of our lives.

•••
Next day, after a breakfast for about a seventy-five or more at Peoples Café, and a beer at Murio’s, we marked the occasion with an impromptu Waterfallian-wake and a birthday party barbeque for Brigie’s 20th, with banjo and fiddle rockabilly.

•••
Waterfall’s sisters Joan and Kathleen have arranged that his ashes are to be taken by scow out under the Golden Gate Bridge and blown away in an ecologically approved manner.

There will be a memorial gathering at Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park at 3PM on Saturday 13 March 2010; and then at Esu and Eco’s apartment on Masonic at 6PM. Waterfall will also have the Haight Ashbury Street Fair dedicated in his honor on Sunday, June 13. More information at www.haightashburystreetfair.org.

What people said at the breakfast for Waterfall

•••
“Love heals and then reveals” – Eco

“Every village needs its elders, its fools and its wise men. Thank you, Waterfall – Richard Ivanhoe

“Waterfall: My favorite memory: singing Jingle Bell Rock with the sleigh bells at Christmas dinner, and his incredible depth of knowledge.”
– Ann Zakaluk

“Whenever we lose a character of such warmth, light, and peace a part of myself uncoils further towards bliss. I only hope that I can honor the life that has bettered mine.” – Jared

“We will miss you, Waterfall, here at breakfast.” – Indigo Hotchkiss

“My Water, you’ve been my best brother and friend for 26 years. I love you forever. As Jimmi Hendrix said, ‘I’ll see you in the next place – and don’t be late.’ Love.” – Ezu

Your family and we are all connected in Love, our San Francisco family of Love and Music. Aloha my friend. – Teddy from Hawaii
“Your family will all miss you, your sisters, Kathleen Newe and Joan Sheehan; your brother-in-law, Albert; your nieces and nephews, Theresa, John, William, Nicole and Noel. You took a different path from us but we three were blessed to be together at the end and we are grateful for that. We are proud of you and will miss you. We thank all your friends for their kindness and love to us.” – Kathleen and Joan

The Dream

I emerged from out of my dream
This morning as from a river
Pulling myself up to sit a moment
As it clamored away behind me
Into the currents of the night
With just a memory or two
Fished up like pieces of clothing
As from some raucous swimming escapade
A cacophony of voices gradually drifting away
As I turn to fix a cup of tea
And so I’m told will this life fade
As I pull myself out of the river
Of its belief onto another shore
And what will remain?
No doubt Love will be the ground
Upon which I sit recovering
As I sat this morning on the edge
Of my loud but vanishing dream
Drifting away like some Riverboat Casino
Music and loud voices fading.

– Indigo

Nobody’s gone.

“I am a Will–I–Am, I am Francis, called ‘Waterfall’, in the famed Irish family of Sheehan from Cork and Donegal, Eire, brother of Joan and Kathleen Sheehan of New Jersey.”

“I was a big baby”, said William, who became the all-round Varsity strong Irishman – he played fullback on the grid; on the diamond he had a hundred-mile-an-hour arm. He was prevented from throwing ball at the juniors, and eventually his own teammates, all because his speed and strength was too much for the safety of the school insurance.

William Sheehan studied under the Jesuits, then at St. Peter’s College, Jersey City and graduated with a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Detroit followed by four years as a draughtsman in Detroit, at General Motors, where Waterfall worked as a systems engineer, specializing in transmission. He had innovative ideas on how to quickly change batteries in electric autos. For some reason he had studied nuclear engineering too. One night in 1967 he, a self described regular guy, and three roommate friends decided to go to Woodstock, “… to see some bands.”

It was a life changing experience. He was there throughout the Woodstock Festival, from which he never returned to the corporate world.

•••
Waterfall catches the bus…

After Woodstock, Bill became Waterfall, was with the Hog farm and Hugh Romney, aka Wavy Gravy, riding in the famed bus, ‘Furthur’, and cooking stew for many. He forsook his old lifestyle, and became an integral communard and a resident at all the communes mentioned here in this lengthy quote from Timothy Miller, at the University of Kansas. The communities interrelated and Waterfall stayed at Drop City a while.

“… Other experiments pointing the way toward the communes that spread like wildfire after 1966 took place over the next couple of years. Most importantly, probably, Drop City was founded in southern Colorado in 1965, a colony of bohemian artists who saw themselves as creating a whole new civilization, rejecting paid employment and making their art inseparable from their lives. In housing themselves they created some of the most memorable communal architecture ever, geodesic-style domes colorfully covered with car tops retrieved from junkyards. Drop City was a major inspiration for the communes founded over the next few years.”

“Back in California another commune began to take shape as Drop City was getting under way. In 1965 Hugh Romney and friends were offered the free use of a farmhouse and thirty acres overlooking the San Fernando Valley if they would tend the owner’s swine. From that beginning emerged the Hog Farm, which burst into national prominence as the “Please Force” at Woodstock. The Hog Farm is still very much alive and well today, with a main enclave in Berkeley and a second location, Black Oak Ranch near Laytonville, where Hugh Romney, now known as Wavy Gravy, runs his clown camp.

“Not much later the Diggers began contributing to the cultural scene in a way that would influence and promote communes. Living on society’s leftovers and espousing a belief that everything should be free, the Diggers took all kinds of people into their several communal households. Others emulated the Digger example, and for a time informal urban communes and crashpads proliferated. Some of the scenes were chaotic, but others functioned well and introduced thousands to a new way of living.

The diggers were an especially strong influence on Waterfall.

Set your chickens free! was the rallying cry of Lou Gottlieb, who housed a commune in the former chicken coops on Wheeler’s Ranch. And Waterfall lived there for a year – it was another life-changer, about which he often talked.

“As the Haight-Ashbury began to develop into the country’s premier countercultural enclave, this landmark commune of the new era began to take form 50 miles to the north. Lou Gottlieb, the bassist and resident guru/humorist for the popular folk-singing group the Limeliters, purchased a thirty-two acre farm in Sonoma County near Occidental. His friend Ramón Sender moved to the property in the spring of 1966, and others soon followed. No one was turned away, and the population grew steadily for a year. Then the summer of love arrived, 1967, and soon hundreds were living at Morning Star Ranch. Gottlieb became passionately dedicated to the precept of open land, turning no one away, and at one point deeded Morning Star to God to avoid taxes. (The judge said not so – god owned no property.) The gospel of open land did not sit well with the Sonoma County authorities, however, and conflicts soon flared. Before it was all over, county bulldozers leveled the hand-built structures of Morning Star four times. But those dedicated souls did not give up; some moved to Wheeler’s Ranch nearby, which Bill Wheeler opened to all comers when the situation at Morning Star became desperate. Others moved to New Mexico and started a new Morning Star there near the great communal mecca of Taos, which had blossomed after the founding of New Buffalo in 1967.”

It was at Morning Star that Waterfall arrived after Woodstock along with the Hog Farm busses. After his stint at Wheeler’s Ranch Waterfall moved on to become involved in founding of the Rainbow Gathering. Here’s Wicki on the subject:

“The first Rainbow Gathering of the Tribes, a four-day event in Colorado in July 1972, was organized by youth counterculture “tribes” based in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Twenty thousand people faced police roadblocks, threatened civil disobedience, and were allowed onto National Forest land. This was intended to be a onetime event; however, a second gathering in Wyoming the following year materialized, at which point an annual event was declared. The length of the gatherings has since expanded beyond the original four-day span, as have the number and frequency of the gatherings

“The Rainbow Family has no leaders, no structure, no official spokespersons, no official documents, and no membership. Documents are produced as needed and maintained by various groups, and certain themes are consistently seen in this Rainbow literature: Love, Peace, Non-violence, Respect the Environment, Non-commercialism, Volunteer, Respect, Consensus, Diversity.

Waterfall was a regular at the Rainbow Gathering for many years, I think the last Gathering he was at was in 2004.

•••
“I am a priest in the Universal Life Church, empowered to marry,” Waterfall often said. As one smiling, dark-goateed man in a sweater, who may have been Teddy, said at the memorial breakfast, “He married us, and many others.”

Waterfall had studied the Upanishads and the Rig Veda, was quite at home with an Om. One of his old roommates, Eddy, told me at the wake, that it was because of Waterfall that he was a Buddhist.

Water, as we called him, had many loves in his life. He was as equally emotionally fulfilled by his activism, blockading Three Mile Island; demonstrating for peace at the Nevada test sites; helping King Salmon spawn, marching for peace in San Francisco. Most recently he stood at the Vigil for World Peace with the artist, Cat Bell, and poet, Richard Ivanhoe every month in the Panhandle.

He told me a couple of weeks ago, that he was disappointed he hadn’t lived to see a change for the better in the world before he went, he loudly said he was mad that world peace had not yet happened. But I told him he had created the beginnings of another time to come, and that it was only by speaking out, as he did, that change could really happen. He said the truth to be found in his words is like the movement in the ‘Butterfly Effect’. I said that his is a voice that will live on, causing great revolution through the power of his concentrated beginnings.

•••
Nobody’s gone… Waterfall was a voter and activist in the Nobody for President Campaign that began in 1976 and he used the construct often in his writing, as he said, “I’m Nobody’s fool.”

•••
Waterfall was a fool at the All Beings Parade.

•••
Cat Bell recalls meeting Waterfall at the Grand Piano on Haight in 1979, when he lived over on Church and 21st. After a romance with the older widow, Ms Boycott in Mill Valley, he moved into 548 Ashbury around 1984 where he had many roommates including most recently, Alice Rules, the photographer and Gordon Giles, who manages the pet store.

•••
Another Waterfallian activity of which he liked to tell was that he was the third person to cook the sit down meals at the Haight Ashbury Food Kitchen at Hamilton Methodist Church, around 1984.

•••
Asked by Pablo Heising in about 1995, Waterfall then opened the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair every year with his Caped-Guruman act – four blasts on his conch, to the north, south, east and the west. With the assistance of the late San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk the first Haight-Ashbury Street Fair was held in 1978. For 33 years, the annual street fair has featured arts, crafts, and music. Over the years bands have included the Jefferson Starship/Airplane, members of the Dead, The Tubes, Metallica, and Noel Redding. The next Fair is to be dedicated to Waterfall.

There’s video of Water’ blowing the Conch at the Fair to be seen at www.haightashburystreetfair.org/drupalhasf/hasf/history

•••
Waterfall published a small flyer, The Waterfallian, three or four times a year, from 2002 to 2010. A number of back issues are available and there is a web site http://waterfallian.wordpress.com.

•••
We will all miss his presence.

Almost 50 people gathered together at the base of the service road (at the intersection of Buena Vista East and West and Upper Terrace) under a drizzly-grey sky to attend the ceremony, which was followed by a guided stroll around the newly opened areas.

The large new staircase leads from the street level on the southeast side of Buena Vista Park nearly all the ways to the park’s 589 foot summit, with the new plank-lined trails offering spectacular views of the southern and eastern parts of the city.

Other improvements include a new mid-slope trail and new erosion-oriented landscaping and signage.

For more information on the new park renovations visit www.parks.sfgov.org or www.bvnasf.com.

BVNA also organizes a volunteer gardening day in the park on the first Saturday of each month at 9 a.m. For more information, e-mail BVNA@ix.netcom.com.

On Wednesday, January 6, Whole Foods VP of Store Development Glen Moon gave a presentation to the Haight Ashbury Improvement Association that outlined specific plans and designs for the incoming market, which will be approximately 17,000 sq. ft. and have a very similar design and layout as the recently opened Whole Foods on 24th Street in Noe Valley (above photo.)

The exterior will feature high windows along Haight Street, which will let in natural light, and the store entrance may move in that direction. There will be several areas for bike parking and a dog hitching post.

The designs go before the Planning Commission on January 28, with construction occurring from May to October. The new store is expected to open this December.

Shoppers can expect to find wide aisles, with a large selection of bulk foods, a coffee bar and a rotisserie and small on-site kitchen with prepared foods, including a deli and two food bars.

Concerns over traffic congestion have been minimized since all trucks will be loading from the existing parking lot, which will also hold about 40 cars. Lot attendants will direct traffic during busy hours.

The new Whole Foods Market will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and will bring 130 new jobs to the neighborhood.

abrody(at)haightbeat.com

The new Chinese Immersion School that opened this semester at the De Avila campus becomes the fifth Chinese Immersion Program in the city, providing a rigorous but fun academic program taught in English and Cantonese that endows children with the confidence and tools they will need to succeed in today’s society. Students in the program are immersed in a diverse, multilingual classroom setting, which serves to give them wider perspective and deepen their understanding of the world around them.

Located at 1250 Waller Street, the program currently hosts Kindergarten and First Grade. However, they are expected to add one grade each year, progressively. Depending on capacity allowance and the plans of the school district, De Avila will eventually become either a Kindergarten through fifth grade or Kindergarten through eighth grade school.

On a recent visit De Avila’s halls are quiet, yet the students in the classrooms are active and engaged. Principal Rosina Tong walks into Ms. Moong’s First Grade classroom during a short break between lessons. Several students bound over to greet her, whipping their arms around her in an embrace, and speaking to her in Cantonese.

The teacher regains attention from her class. The next lesson is BINGO word recognition with Chinese characters, where the children demonstrate their impressive Cantonese cognition and speaking abilities.

“It’s phenomenal to me how much they can understand in just six weeks,” said Elizabeth, the parent of a Kindergartener at De Avila. At home, she says, her son sings songs in Cantonese, practicing his vocabulary, while also teaching some to his mom and little sister.

Grace, another parent of a De Avila Kindergartener, is first generation American with Chinese parents who immigrated to the U.S. She admits having hardly any ability to speak and understand Cantonese. Although she went to Chinese classes after school when she was just older than her son is now, not being immersed in the language made it difficult to learn.

“I chose the immersion program because I felt like it will really round things out for him, specifically for direction and the education I want for him,” Grace says.

“The teachers are incredibly animated [when teaching], and when they explain, they are trying to also connect as much non verbally,” Elizabeth says.

Since a number of the parents of the Immersion Program’s students don’t speak Cantonese, the school provides vocabulary sheets for parents that list what their children have been learning in school. Online sources are also available to parents through the De Avila website. Resources online are expanding to include web activities linked to other school websites, such as the Urban High School.

Principal Tong says that the teachers, especially in the lower grades, start language immersion simply, identifying classroom objects, teaching basic functions and commands, and construct the language immersion so students can learn and build their language skills gradually and simultaneously with other lessons. She says that beyond being an immersion school they are “just like a regular elementary school,” and their students have “joyful learning” in all subjects.

In the current classrooms, eighty percent of the curriculum is taught in Cantonese with the remainder in English. Higher grades will adjust the language ratio to include more English. By grade five, half of the curriculum will be taught in language immersion, half in English. Promoting language in this way builds a firm foundation of new language skills early, and the taper to an even balance establishes that subjects can be mastered in length and depth in both languages.

The Immersion Program at De Avila teaches Cantonese to students to model after the majority of the Chinese people in San Francisco, who predominantly speak Cantonese rather than Mandarin. However, Tong is hopeful, as they continue to expand, to include Mandarin as part of the curriculum.

As the Immersion Program at De Avila aspires to grow within their building, so is the larger immersion school corps in San Francisco. The West Portal Immersion Program is working closely with De Avila to figure out where the immersion students can continue their Chinese immersion on into middle school. Hoover Middle School has a Chinese Immersion Program, but is currently too small to accommodate all the incoming sixth through eighth graders.

Principal Tong has been pivotal communicating with the district what they’d like to accomplish at De Avila, Elizabeth says. There is concern amongst some parents and school representatives about expanding De Avila as much as capacity will yield, however they are being optimistic, and also smartly preparing for whatever may be decided by the district.

“I believe in myself and in my colleagues; we are going to make something happen,” Tong says. “We’ve reached where we are by collaboration with our parents, they really have been incredible.” This sentiment is overwhelmingly reciprocated from the parents about the administrators at the Immersion Program at De Avila.

Tong also expresses that she wants her school to be an active participant in the community, as well as build community partnerships with other Haight neighbors. “We are open to receive support and be supportive to them,” Tong says.

To learn more about the Chinese Immersion School at De Avila visit their website at www.cisdeavila.com.

San Francisco is the veritable birthplace of psychedelic blotter acid art, and The Beat recently had the opportunity to sit down with its Godfather and preemminent collector, Mark McCloud, at his house in the Mission District – known unofficially as the Institute of Illegal Images.

A native of Argentina, McCloud grew up in the same tough neighborhood of Buenos Aires as guerilla revolutionary Che Guevara. By the time he was 12, McCloud had seen 18 revolutions in his country.

“In the 1960s Buenos Aires was already having a war on terror,” he says. “I survived despite the government.”

He first came to San Francisco in 1966. He then made the permanent move to the city in 1977, and was able to buy his 100-year-old house in 1983 after receiving a National Endowment for the Arts grant under president Reagan.

McCloud has been taking psychedelic trips and collecting and designing the tiny square paper artworks they are distributed on for more than 30 years. His collection boasts over 33,000 sheets of blotter art – the largest and most diverse collection on the planet.

Covering almost every inch of the pale blue walls of the living and dining rooms of the old two-story victorian are framed sheets of blotter art, depicting every kind of pop culture icon you can imagine.

There are the famous ones: Felix the Cats, red and orange sunshines, Mad Hatters, Beavis and Buttheads, and McCloud’s most famous personal design: Alice Through the Looking Glass, a double-sided sheet with Alice climbing through the window into the psychedelic realm.

McCloud traded a copy of the Alice sheet to artist Shepard Fairey during a show for a hand-framed edition of one of Fairey’s early poster series,’ which displays a four-part picture of Andre the Giant wearing a Marilyn Monroe wig titled “Andre Warhol.” The poster hangs proudly above the stairwell.

His collection also contains rarer blotter art like the ones signed by Tim Leary and Albert Hoffman, ones with images of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and the inflammatory series with the FBI seal stamped on it. Some of these sheets even came with elaborate envelopes designed to match their contents.

A California license plate with the letters “CY KDLC” hangs against one wall next to a 1973 Michigan plate reading “LSD-770.” In one corner stands a large wooden machine reminiscent of an old-fashioned scrub-board laundry. A closer look reveals that it is in fact a perforating machine, used to cut those handy markings across the blotter sheet.

In 2000 McCloud’s house was raided by the DEA, and in 2001 he went before a Kansas City jury who would decide whether the 33,000 sheets of perforated paper found in his backyard shed (and some that supposedly found its way near a school in Missouri) was the largest collection of this type of pop culture art, or whether they represented a delivery system for 33 million hits of acid.

The jury ultimately decided that McCloud’s collection did indeed represent a legitimate new emerging art form, and he was acquitted. He had prevously beaten a similar charge after a blotter art exhibit he participated in back in 1991 in Houston.

A bit eccentric, yet sharp as a tack, McCloud is full of colorful tidbits about the psychedelic origins of religion and society. He waxes poetic about how the Christian communion wafer is round to symbolize a psilocybin mushroom cap, and how the sport of golf was invented to search for such shrooms. He also suggests that even the modern computer was spawned by LSD users.

He tells of how the first acid was put on litmus paper, and had to be secured by metallic inks. “Otherwise the sauce would run,” McCloud explains. He was also a pioneer in the use of soy-based inks. “At that time there wasn’t a shortage of ink or acid,” he says, slyly.

Being heavily involved in the blotter art scene has introduced McCloud to numerous iconic figures. His stories include dropping acid with infamous LSD producer Owsley Stanley III and hanging out with Timothy Leary.

Other stories and references include Karla LaVey (Anton’s daughter), Brian Eno, David Byrne, Iggy Pop, Ed Hardy, Sky Saxon of the Seeds, Ray Bradbury and L. Ron Hubbard, Julia Child, Andy Warhol, Alex and Allyson Grey, and San Diego’s psychedelic tribal phenomena Crash Worship.

At one point he pulls out an original photograph of a young Jimmy Page hanging out with William Burroughs inside Aleister Crowley’s house. McCloud also loves the movie Wild in the Streets, in which a young kid is elected president and requires all adults to spend two weeks in LSD camp.

Another story includes the Blue Unicorn Café, now the site of Braindrops Piercing and Tattoo on Haight Street, which is “where the beats took acid and became the hippies,” McCloud says. “Where would The Haight be without LSD-25?”

Every so often during the conversation McCloud turns and gives a sly, knowing look to his guest. This is his life’s work, and he know’s quite a lot about it.

He designed the artwork for 1980s era punk band RKL’s (Rich Kids on LSD) third album, and his blotter collection won second place at the SF County Fair in 1987.

Recently McCloud has began celebrating his most beloved blotters by making huge Giclee reproductions of them, many as large as 30 square inches.

Some of the more famous art in McCloud’s collection was immortalized in the making of the Cure of Souls poster, in which various blotter art was collaged together and then photographed at extremely high definition by a gigantic, room-sized camera.

After more than four hours inside McCloud’s psychedelic den I break for lunch and say “goodbye.” He walks me to the front door and invites me back for a more informal visit sometime in the future. Just as I say “I would love to,” McCloud shoots me another one of those sly, knowing glances.

abrody(at)haightbeat.com

The 4th Annual “Children’s Halloween Hootenanny”, a free event designed to provide the children of the Haight-Ashbury and surrounding neighborhoods with a safe and fun place to celebrate the spirit of Halloween, is just around the corner. And we need your help in making this the best one yet.

The event this year features a “MEDIEVAL TIMES” theme and will take place on Saturday, October 24th from 11 am until 4:00 pm at the Stanyan Street and Waller Street cul-de-sac next to Kezar Pavilion in San Francisco. Sponsored by the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair, this event will include a costume contest, performers, exhibitions and creative hands-on activities designed to entertain children of all ages. Of course, this event will be strictly supervised and monitored to ensure the safety and amusement of all participants.

We are currently seeking the financial and material assistance from companies, organizations and individuals to enable us to provide a thoroughly delightful experience. All donations are tax- deductible and greatly appreciated. Below are some of the categories you may consider:

• Platinum Phantom – For a financial or material donation of $500 – $5000, you can help create whole new areas as Line Fencing, Human Chess Game, Games and Activities Area or create a whole new area of your taste. All donors will be given public credit and a placement of one’s company logo on our website and a personal tour of the event. All donors will also get a Haight-Ashbury Street Fair “LOVE” package containing a HASF t-shirt, 32nd HASF Anniversary poster and a few other surprise’s.

• Golden Pumpkin – For a financial or material donation of $200 – $500, you can help us procure various fun activities as the Medieval Jumper, Ghost House or create an activity of your own choosing. All donors will be given public credit and a placement of one’s company logo on our website and a personal tour of the event.

• Friendly Spirit – For a financial or material donation of $50 – $200, you can help make sure that there will be plenty of goodies and fun Halloween bags for all children to enjoy. All donors will get a public credit on our website.

• Participating Prankster – Volunteer your time and efforts in helping us with various activities. We need help in all areas so let us know what you want to do. All volunteers will get public credit on our website and bagful of thanks.

Last year’s “Children’s Halloween Hootenanny” drew more than 200 children and parents, over 20 contributors. We had many neighborhood folks who volunteered, donated goods and made financial donations.

Please let us know how you can help to make this a great time for the children. Please contact me, Monique Woodhams at 415-314-0997 or Michael Xavier at 415-664-2970 at your earliest convenience and let us know how you can be an active participant in this event.

Thank you,

Monique Woodhams/Director Michael Xavier/President
Children’s Halloween Hootenanny Haight-Ashbury Street Fair
Monique_Woodhams@yahoo.com buzzpresents@juno.com

The Haight has lost one of its icons, one of its most talented
artists, one of its favorite sons, one of its biggest smiles. Our
friend Jacob Alexander passed away on September 8.

I know that we will all miss him and the sparkle in his eyes and that
wherever his soul is it is no longer limited by the shores of the
Pacific.

A memorial walk to the beach has been scheduled for Sunday, September 20. Please meet at McLaren Lodge at 10 a.m.

Every day, Jacob Alexander wears his necklace of trinkets during his
daily walks from his home in the Haight-Ashbury to Golden Gate Park.

www.jacobalexanderart.com

—————————————————-

Please join us on Sunday, September 20 as we celebrate Jake and his extraordinary life with a memorial walk in his honor.

We will gather at 10:00 a.m. at McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park (near the corner of Fell and Stanyan) to walk Jake’s favorite path to the beach. We will meet afterwards around noon at the wall across from Beach Chalet, where we will toast Jake with his drink of choice: vodka.

Please contact us with any questions at info@yangki.com.

With thanks and love, The Alexander Family

McLaren Lodge
501 Stanyan St
San Francisco, CA 94117

Beach Chalet
1000 Great Hwy
San Francisco, CA 94122

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12
SPEEDWAY MEADOW,
GOLDEN GATE PARK – SF
9AM – 5PM

SUNDAY, SEPTEMEBER 13
HERBST THEATER, SF
10A – 7PM

YOGA & BRAZILIAN ARTS WORKSHOP
CARE.ORG GLOBAL FORUM & CELEBRATION

OT, Rock Bottom (located suspiciously on the old Deep End burial grounds at 9 o’clock & Fossil) and Root Society will all have daytime parties, and OT has created the Phoenix Bar for your drinking enjoyment (remember to bring your own cup!)

The DJ lineup looks pretty good this year with sets from FreQ Nasty, Carl Cox, Infected Mushroom, Dylan Rhymes, Meat Katie, Elite Force, Armin Van Buuren, and the rest of the OT resident DJs.

See below for complete OT and Root Society Dj lineups:

Photo and text by abrody(at)haightbeat.com

Opulent Temple 2009 DJ Lineup
Monday Night – Opening Night: ‘Welcome to Opulent Evo’
8:45 Opening Ceremony
9:00 Brother Hill
9:45 Drew Drop
10:30 Dex Stakker v. Dragn’fly
11:15 Cosmic Selector
12:00 Jeff Taisch
12:45 Vinkalmann
01:45 Dutch
02:30 Ghost Wolf
03:30 Atum
(04:30)

Tuesday Night – Opulent Involution
8:00 Todd Fatjo
9:00 Tamo
10:00 Michael Anthony
10:45 Layne Loomis
11:30 Dex Stakker
12:30 Jeff Taisch
01:30 Syd Gris
02:30 Dulce Vita
03:30 Drew Drop
04:30 J’Sin
05:30 Billy Casazza
06:30 Billy Seal
(07:30

Wednesday Night
~Sacred Dance~ (Our Annual White Party – White Attire requested)
8:00 Beats Antique
9:00 Cheb I Sabbah
10:00 *Persian Mystical Dance Show*
10:30 Cosmic Selector
11:30 Ali B
12:30 Tim Healey
01:30 Sharam
03:00 Vinkalmann
04:30 Icon
05:30 Dulce Vita
06:30 Dutch
07:30 Treavor Moontribe
(08:15)

Thursday Day – Opulent Day Funk
(the Phoenix Bar is open – bring your own cup!)
1:00 MoPo
1:45 Influence vs. ECQ
2:45 Patricio
3:30 Small Town DJ’s
4:15 Ali B (funk set)
5:00 Donald Glaude
(6:00)

Thursday Night – The End Point of Evolution is Trancendence
8:00 Distraction (aka Greg Briggs)
9:00 Newmindspace
10:00 Billy Seal
11:00 Syd Gris
12:00 Armin Van Buuren
02:00 Infected Mushroom – LIVE PA
03:30 Atum
04:15 Billy Casazza
05:15 Atimatik
06:15 J’Sin
7:15 Dave Levi
(8:15)

Friday Day – Opulent Day House
(the Phoenix Bar is open – bring your own cup!)
1:00 DJ Infinitee
2:00 Paul Hemming
3:00 Jeff Taisch
4:00 Laird
5:00 Zach Moore
6:00 Kramer
(7:24)

Friday Night – Survival of the Grooviest
8:00 Nick McAllister
9:00 Jamie Lin
10:00 pending
10:45 Drew Drop
11:45 Dj Dan
01:00 Carl Cox
03:00 Christopher Lawrence
04:30 Dutch
05:45 Dex Stakker
07:00 DJ Hil
(08:00)

Saturday Day – Opulent Sun Beats
(the Phoenix Bar is open – bring your own cup!)
1:00 Derek Hena
2:00 Brian Peek
3:00 Bo
4:00 Brian Williams
5:00 Atimatik
6:00 Billy Casazza
(7:00)

Saturday Night – Propel Evolution through Effort
10:30 Dylan Rhymes
12:30 Elite Force vs. Meat Katie
03:00 Lee Coombs
04:15 Cosmic Selector
05:15 Dopamine
06:15 Syd Gris
07:15 Britney Spears (heavy dubstep dj set)
(08:15)

Root Society 2009 DJ Lineup