From the Director's Chair
Alisa Baker reports from behind the scenes . . .
September 2008
All good things must come to an end! Kurt and I have had a great time putting on Talk Show Live for the last 15 months, but it's time to move on. I can't begin to say what a wonderful experience it's been to meet so many fascinating San Franciscans -- not just as our on-stage guests, but in our audience. It's been a very special event every month, and I feel privileged to have been a part of it.
Our September 15 show was a fitting grand finale with a sell-out, standing room only crowd Guests Reny Ryan, Jack Boulware and Christian Cagigal shone. Reny is absolutely hysterical, both on and off stage, and she brought a huge fan contingent with her to listen to her very racy tales of bikini waxing. She even brought along a bunch of XXX props for demonstration purposes, not to mention diagrams (!) from her new book. Jack not only told us about his role in co-creating San Francisco's legendary literary festival, Litquake, but filled us in on his experiences in writing his upcoming oral-history book about the Bay Area punk rock scene. He's a total pro. And we wound up with a truly mesmerizing performance (and baffling mind-reading demonstration) by "it's not really magic" magciian, Christan. Plus our always hot TSL house band, Cafe Americain, made the whole evening into a big party. Quite a send-off!
Stay tuned for the next thing! And in the meantime, stay in touch. Just shoot me an email anytime.
See you anywhere in the neighborhood where cool stuff is going down. . . . Alisa
August 2008
The August 11 show gave us the chance to settle into our cool new home at 330 Ritch with a minimum of aches and pains: a few technical glitches that should be corrected by next time (I think we've figured out the sound now!), a new intimate set-up for the room, and some tweaks to the bar menu. Overall, I'm really happy with the venue and, judging from feedback at the show, so is everyone else. Watching from the audience, it looks to me like the new set-up works well for both Cafe Americain and the interviews. Let me know if you have thoughts on this. It's an exciting continuation to our Talk Show Live experiment!The place was like a comedy club with this month's guests: Jennifer Niederst Robbins, Marcia Gagliardi and Kasper Hauser. Kurt was in great form, leading off with the story of what inspired our beloved TSL after-show drawing. Then we discovered that despite her high-power status as one of the web's pioneering graphic designers (and the author of some of its most influential design manuals), Jennifer also charms the rock-star guests on her web-based interview shows, Cooking with Rock Stars and Parenting with Rock Stars. Food columnist Marcia Gagliardi, "the tablehopper," delighted our SF foodie audience with her witty, down-home dish (and pre-publication scoop!) on what's happening in restaurant kitchens all over town. And Kurt could barely keep a straight face when interviewing the wild men of Kasper Hauser: Rob, John, James and Dan. Fortunately, there was no need to do so -- the guys were so hysterical (whether doing their monk sketch or just attempting to answer questions) that no one wanted them to leave the stage. The show kept going until almost 9:45 . . . you gotta give the people what they want!
July 2008
How can I do justice to the great time we had at our first anniversary show on July 14? And by "we" I mean all 120+ of us! In addition to our normal cool show-goers, we were privileged to have many of the featured guests from our first year joining us in the audience. It was great to see everyone having such a good time.
Our anniversary show was as much a party as it was a performance! Doors opened to the sounds of our guys in Cafe Americain (joined by special guests Mal Sharpe and Laurence Hyman), at the top of their form. By 7:30 the room was almost full of revelers, and spoken-word artist/author/TSL regular Frank Lauria held forth with a surprise performance before the show.
From there, the program flowed (along with the special Bastille Day cocktails!) We started by introducing a new favorite, singer/songwriter Larry Gallagher, who delighted the audience with his personal, witty musical commentaries throughout the evening. Then host Kurt Bodden ushered in our parade of wonderful encore guests: wacky poetry from Cameron Galloway, wry commentary from Ethan Watters, new adventures from Andrea Carla Michaels, and a storytelling duet with Tim Ereneta. We also got to catch up with Mal Sharpe and musical director Ned Boynton. And all night (long past the end of the show), the house band filled the room with high energy jazz. Like I said, it was quite the party.
Thanks to our new venue, 330 Ritch, we have room to grow as we enter our second year of Talk Show Live: San Francisco!. And thanks to you, our fabulous audience -- and your word of mouth -- we are, indeed, growing: both in numbers and in experience. It's an exciting moment for all of us on the TSL team. We're looking forward to having all of you with us as we continue our experiment with bringing interesting San Franciscans together on the second Monday night of the month!
June 2008
Our twelfth episode of Talk Show Live of gave us the chance to let the show do what it does best: introduce some new perspectives, share some unexpected happenings, and hear some great music. Fashion design icon Babette showed us not just slides of her process, but real examples from her always-innovative clothing line, surprising us with an impromptu fashion show drawn from her fans in the crowd. West Coast Live host/founder Sedge Thomson talked shop with TSL host Kurt Bodden and also enlightened us on the meaning of the word "sedge" (it's not grass!). Unfortunately, Dr. Susan Raeburn (with me, left) refused to dish the dirt on any of her rock star patients. But she did let us in on some of the politics behind creating the rock'n'roll branch of music medicine. . . . Kurt also treated us to a sneak peek of his reading for Chronicle Books. And our regular Cafe Americain guys brought in some ringers on bass and guitar to make the evening even more special.It was a great way to wind up our year at the Purple Onion in North Beach. Next stop: South of Market, where our new venue, the uber-hip club 330 Ritch, will be offering a full bar, great food, more room to expand and.. . . yes, street parking! We're really excited to be exploring a new neighborhood and to combining our first year vibe with a new version in year 2. See you there for our big first anniversary show on July 14!
May 2008
I don't know why I'm always surprised that every episode of the show rocks. Our whole theory from the beginning has been that the combination of interesting guests and interested audience would make for a unique experience every time -- and we were right. The May 12 show was as good an example of this as we get. Three guests, three completely different performances and three great interviews. . . . plus, a surprise drop-in. First, LA girlfriend-seeker Dave Kessler stopped by to update us on his love life in the wake of national attention for his "romantic stimulus payment" (answer: still looking). Then, musician/improv performer Joshua Raoul Brody made music theory entertaining (!) with an excerpt from his solo work-in-progress, The History of Music Since The Beginning of Time (or something like that). Turns out it's much easier to condense a few thousand years of music history into 5 minutes than it is to condense J. Raoul's astonishing musical career into 25 minutes. But we had to to move on so we could find out about "karaoke for designers" from Paul Jamtgaard, co-founder of Pecha Kucha SF, who not only showed but told: 20 slides X 20 seconds is all you need to break down the barriers between different design disciplines (check out Paul's Pecha Kucha about Pecha Kucha ). Paul and his buddies have big plans to use the power of Pecha Kucha to generate creative solutions to problems worldwide; should be great to see what happens. And indie lit-mag impresario Todd Zuniga blew everyone away with his fascinating tales of life on the cutting edge of the literary scene: the co-founder of Literary Death Match and Opium Magazine also proved he could walk the walk with a 2-minute-49-second "green reading" (read off his iPhone!) of his short story. But what about his break-up with Elizabeth? We never got to hear all the details. . . we'll have to get him back on the show.If that seems like enough for one night, think again! We had not just one band, but two: our own Cafe Americain before the show, PLUS the incredible Tango No. 9 playing during and after.
And as we near our first anniversary, we've got some exciting changes in the works for Talk Show Live: San Francisco. Stay tuned!
April 2008
We learned quite a bit about good manners at the April 14 show. Naturally, from on-line etiquette queen Helena Echlin, who discussed not only the fine distinctions between the two kinds of French kisses (the peck on both cheeks and. . . the other, more friendly kind) but the proper way to address one's phone-sex clients. Of course, any type of greeting would be proper when enhanced by Helena's sly wit and posh British accent. And color expert Susan Hershman had her own etiquette tips: good manners are absolutely essential when convincing people to let you photograph (and make comments on!) the color palettes they used for their houses. Judging from the compelling images Susan showed us (both on-screen and in her encyclopedic new book, House Colors), there's a lot more to selecting a building's exterior look than meets the eye. As to Jim Cranna -- well, maybe good manners aren't everything. When you get a chance, as our audience did, to hear a pro like Jim reminisce about the behind-the-scenes behavior of San Francisco's legendary improv pioneers since the 1960s, you're really not all that interested in having it be tasteful! And if this weren't enough for one evening, we were treated to the incredible boogie-woogie keyboard -- and singing! -- of jazz pianist Eric Shifrin, who played solo and with our fabulous house band, Cafe Americain.March 2008
March 10 was another night of wonderful surprises. As one of audience member said, "who knew wallpaper could be so interesting?" When it's being discussed by artist Sondra Alexander, it's astonshingly interesting -- especially viewed in the context of the environmental and architectural influences that make their way into her unique, handpainted work. We got to look at (and hear about) both slides and samples. Plus, her entire family was in the house -- all wearing Sondra Alexander original designs. Beautiful and amazing. Equally fascinating was dancer/choreographer Jess Curtis' startling photos and descriptions of his groundbreaking pieces, including his new show, The Symmetry Project, which has been performed -- completely naked! -- by himself and his partner Maria (also in the house!) in both mainstream and eccentric venues around the world. It will be having it's US premiere here in San Francisco at the end of the month and we were fortunate to get a glimpse of it, both in Jess' thought process and in spectacular pix by Sven Hagolani now on display at the CounterPULSE Gallery (and also in our on-line album). And it's quite impossible to describe the impact of even five short minutes of Dan Hoyle's solo show, 'Tings Dey Happen. We got both performance and backstory from one of the Bay Area's fastest rising performance artists. Plus, Jules Broussard absolutely wailing on the sax with our boys in Cafe' Americain.
I have to admit that this night was an especially happy one for me -- not only was my entire bookclub (of 20 years!) in the audience, but my sister Eve from Vermont was also at the show. That's me and Sondra (yes, she's in the bookclub!) after the show.
February 2008
Well, it seemed like everyone took us up on our invitation to be our "not exactly Valentines" on February 11. I can't begin to say what a great show this was. We started out with something new: a hysterical video of Kurt's performance in "Love:Iraqi Style," taped in LA at the Groundlings Theater. The laughter only died down when the bewitching Vicki Burns took the stage with her rendition of "I'm Old Fashioned." Next, the audience hung onto every word as Beth Lisick regaled us with tales from her stint as a Lollapalooza slam poetry star, her recent book tour for Helping Me Help Myself, and life in general. Beth even performed one of her greatest hits (?) with the band, a rare treat. By the time Chuck Siegel took the stage to rhapsodize about chocolate -- while passing out Charles Chocolates truffles to the audience -- we all thought we'd died and gone to heaven. And as if this wasn't all enough, we had fabulous music before, during and after the show by our own Cafe Americain (and Vicki!), plus a surprise drop-in guest, our favorite dixieland jazz master, Mal Sharpe. We couldn't even get people out of the house after the after-party-- the band, Kurt and I were all on our way out the door before the last audience members gave up their tables.Such a cool evening. Each time, I think the show is as good as it can get! But so far, I'm always wrong. And there's no reason to think that our March 10 show will be anything but equally terrific.
January 2008
Happy New Year!
We opened our 2008 Spring Season with a show that turned out to be all about inspiration. First, actor/director/producer/writer (!) Jeffrey Hartgraves gave us insight into his most recent show, Shark Bites (running at Theater Rhino through February 9), even performing a short monologue from it. Jeffrey's struggle with bone cancer inspired him to write a script asking why fear seems to be our major motivator, and his exploration of this question is courageous (and not incidentally, very funny). Next, environmental sculptor Gyöngy Laky fascinated us with a guided tour (complete with slideshow) through her most recent works. When one escapes war as a child, it can result in a life of fear -- or in an amazing artistic journey, as we learned from Gyöngy's story. And what could be more inspiring to our audience than a dotcommer turned bootlegger? Brian Backus shared not only his entrepreneurial adventure -- but to our great delight -- samples of his product! The after-party continued into the night as audience members savored the unique taste of Qi Spirits. Plus, the debut of Cafe Americain as our house band. A wonderful start to 2008.And I'm not the only one who thought our first show of the new year was great! Audience member Leah Garchik had the same good time, and reported on it in her January 16 San Francisco Chronicle "Public Eavesdropping" column. Thanks, Leah!
Next month: Our Not Exactly Valentine's Day Show Bah humbug. But my Valentine's Day week will be much improved by having all of you guys as my (not exactly) Valentine's Day dates. See you at the show!
December 2007
The December 10 show was both our first ever holiday bash and the wrap-up for our 2007 "pilot season." We had a bunch of cool ways to celebrate. Caffe Macaroni is now serving dinner, snacks and drinks in the club starting at 7 pm, so they showed up early to hear gypsy jazz by our special musical guests, Le Jazz Hot, who joined us for an encore performance. We had not one but two wonderful performances: comedian James P. Connolly opened with a hysterical short stand-up set, followed by a (somewhat) more sober interview about his recent trip to entertain the troops in Afghanistan ("you don't want to disappoint") and his own earlier experiences as a Marine in Desert Storm. We closed with Barbara Scott (and J. Raoul Brody) performing her unique form of musical improv comedy ("anything too stupid to be said is sung"), including a spontaneous duet with Kurt! And in between, writer Po Bronson explained his theories on dealing with writer's block ("every writer gets stuck twice a sentence"). After the show we had a surprise visit from premiere show guest Rob Rodgers, who brought a naughty gift to give away in the drawing, in addition to the usual booty from the guests. The after-party didn't break up till long after 10 again. Looks like a trend!As we close out this season, Kurt and I want to thank the wonderful team of talented folks who've pitched in to help us make TSL happen : sound/lights: Neerav Mehta, Bruce Koball and Ian Hadley; photos: Andy Berry/Ryan Sullivan/Clay Robeson; doors: Ann Feehan, Bruce Yelaska, Grace Sargent; website: Nick Rabinowitz; video: Ian Slattery. And of course, our music director Ned Boynton and his gang of North Beach Irregulars.
Last month we asked our "First Nighter" audience (our regulars!) to respond to an online survey and let us know if we were on the right track. Happily, everyone seems to like what we're doing at the Purple Onion with Talk Show Live . . . so we'll be heading into our first "official" season, with a great lineup for opening night on January 14, 2008. We hope you'll join us in the new year!