Latest posts by Peter Lawrence Kane

The most fabulous Hitchcock film that Hitchcock never made, Charade is a 1963 screwball-suspense caper pairing Cary Grant with Audrey Hepburn. It takes place mostly in Paris, but if in their quest to avoid the criminals on their tail the protagonists had jetted to California, they probably would have dined at someplace like Bardo Lounge […]

The partial government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history by a considerable margin, is now 32 days old. Negotiations to reopen the government have been fitful at best, and the electorate pins the blame on the president. His disapproval rating (57 percent) just hit an all-time-high. Meanwhile, the State of the Union address, a frequently […]

The VH1 Behind the Music version of rock history goes something like this: Bill Haley & His Comets emerged one day in 1954 as fully formed as Athena from Zeus’ forehead, and then things steadily crescendoed through Elvis, Shea Stadium, and Yasgur’s Farm, until rock entered its bloated-purple-dead-on-a-toilet phase and everyone who was 27 died […]

This Sunday, Jan. 20, marks the midpoint — theoretically — of the Trump administration. It’s also the return of the Super Blood Moon, when the seventh seal is shaken really hard then opened too quickly and foamy rivers of blood explode all over the tablecloth. Set to last for about three hours and change, with […]

Western SoMa is among the most park-starved places in San Francisco, but City Hall is moving forward on a plan to create Eagle Plaza, a centerpiece of the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural Heritage District. In a statement, Mayor London Breed and supervisors Matt Haney and Rafael Mandelman announced that the section of 12th Street between […]

Oakland is about to get a new brick-and-mortar record store. On Friday, Feb. 1, Bandcamp will open a physical location at 1901 Broadway with a bunch of records culled from its five-million strong digital collection. Shortly thereafter, the 11-year-old online music service will start hosting free, all-ages shows as part of a video series, too. […]

Apart from a bunch of downed trees and two little earthquakes in the same spot 24 hours apart, we sure got a lot of rain this week. The Big Sur River crested just below flood stage, and the Napa and Russian rivers’ levels spiked before rapidly falling again. Southern California got plenty on Monday, when […]

For the greater part of this decade, Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla has fought a battle in the courts to prevent the public from reaching Martin’s Beach, a picturesque enclave south of Half Moon Bay adjacent to the billionaire’s property. In declining to hear an appeal last October, the Supreme Court put an end to […]

Before I went to Honolulu for the first time last May, someone mentioned that it was the best food city in the United States right now. They said it in a casual yet authoritative way, but I was skeptical. An ethnically diverse place in the middle of the ocean means a lot of cross-pollination, yes, […]

Unlike nearby Fort Point, which was militarily obsolete almost from the moment it was built, Fort Mason functioned as a garrison and point of embarkation for nearly a century. And while Fort Point is a relic better known from its Vertigo cameo than for large gatherings, Fort Mason is arguably more dynamic than even when […]