September 10, 2007
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TSL is becoming a scene, just like we hoped! More than half the tables were reserved in advance this time, and people came early to hang out and enjoy the vibe. The show had a low-key sixties counter-culture theme: Joel and the Grateful Dead; Frank in Tangier; Wendy and Emiko with their long-time SF independent film community ties. But that wasn't all! With the SF Fringe Festival in town, we got to throw in a surprise guest, Matt Panesh, who brought a taste of his hit act, Monkey Poet Stand-Up to the Purple Onion for us. Plus, another performance from Kurt (whose own solo Fringe show, Class Notes, was all over the newspapers). The TSL house band, Ned Boynton and the North Beach Irregulars, played gyspy jazz and kept people grooving to their Cafe Americain incarnation well into the night. And Wendy and Emiko' brought down the house at the end of the show with the "dancing vibrators" clip from their new documentary.
JOEL SIEGAL
It's been a long, strange trip for San Francisco plaintiffs' rights lawyer Joel Siegal. Born into a family of labor organizers in Brooklyn, New York, Joel ended up studying law in San Diego during the mid-1970s -- and promptly fell in with the Grateful Dead in all of its many permutations. Even before he'd finished his first year of law school, Joel was working with the group's charitable foundation to bring musical instruments to San Francisco public school students. Since then, Joel's travels with the Dead have been for both cultural and legal purposes. Along the way, he's also continued to honor his "red diaper baby" roots, representing plaintiffs in cases implicating civil rights as well as working with and organizing unions (including the first strippers' union in the US). FRANK LAURIA
Author/poet/songwriter Frank Lauria describes his life as a "geologic strata." A novelist with twenty books to his credit, Frank started as a beat poet in New York in the sixties, sampling the scene with contemporaries Corso, Kerouac, Bremser and Ginsberg. After stints in the army, on Broadway and on the road, Frank wrote Dr. Orient, a novel that used its title character to explore the author's spiritual beliefs. His second Dr. Orient novel, Raga Six, became an international best-seller, established a whole new genre ("psychic fiction") and gave Frank the opportunity to move to Tangier and live the writer's life, making friends with Paul Bowles and William Burroughs (among many others). Since relocating from NYC to SF in the 1990s, Frank has kept busy writing, teaching, escorting other authors, and creating performance pieces that combine poetry, song and rap.
EMIKO OMORI AND WENDY SLICK
Distinguished filmmakers Wendy Slick (R) and Emiko Omori (L) spent the last seven years producing/directing their surprisingly controversial documentary about the vibrator, Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm. The film premiered this summer to rave reviews at NYC's Lincoln Center Scanner's Festival and will be a selection of the Mill Valley Film Festival in October.
Emiko Omori began her career as a filmmaker and cinematographer in 1968. In 1991, she wrote and directed the highly acclaimed drama Hot Summer Wind, and in 1999 her documentary/memoir, Rabbit in the Moon, about her family’s confinement in a World War II American internment camp, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was broadcast on POV, and went on to win a National Emmy for Outstanding Historical Program, among other awards. At Sundance she was awarded the Best Documentary Cinematography award for Rabbit in the Moon and for her work on Academy Award nominee Regret to Inform. Among her other recent productions was last year's Ripe for Change, part of the acclaimed PBS series California and the American Dream. She has taught at USC, San Francisco City College, and at San Francisco State University.
Wendy Slick has produced and directed in almost every facet of the entertainment media industry--American Playhouse, Disney, Showtime, PBS, CBS, and VH-1; has made educational and documentary films for Lucas Film Learning, Harcourt Brace, Sundance Institute, Nature Company, and Apple Computer; and has designed and produced a number of CD-ROMS and Web Sites. She has been honored with several Emmy and ACE nominations, a “1000 Points of Light” award, as well as awards from the New York Film Festival, Houston Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival, and several Cine Golden Eagle Awards. In addition to her many film projects, Wendy created the video department at the College of Marin, and has guest lectured at SF State University, University of CA Extension, and Antioch College.