Due to the continuing WGA strike, the Golden Globes look like they might - might - get the ax. (For all of you book-reading intelligentsia who claim to have TV sets only so that your can watch your Netflix DVDs of The Sopranos and The Wire, you can read more about the strike here.)

While not necessarily Bay Area-related, this deeply affects all of us who look at awards season at something holy and critical - an all-star Ramadan with awards, if you will. While the cancellation is still in the rumor stages, it appears that in lieu of the normal four-plus hour Golden Globe Awards marathon, we could see a scaled back version of the awards, which would consist of "the Hollywood Foreign Press Association handing out Golden Globes to the winners, who will then pick up the awards and pass through a press room for photos and interviews."

That sounds like a phenomenal idea. Why did it take a strike of Hollywood writers to come up with an awards show as brilliant and concise as this? That said, we can't imagine that the Oscar's bastard child of an award show will, in fact, be canceled for something so streamlined and pleasant for the viewer. Hmm. Let's wait and see.

First off, we feel a tad icky for the following post. On one hand, we're playing into his game of profiting of his abuse of women. (For argument's sake, let us presume his gender to be that of an XY-chromosome carrier.) But on the other, women should be warned.

That said, someone going by the name of bayareatailgater on YouTube is taking videos of women's derrieres as they walk around SF and Bay Area streets and stores (i.e., Bay Area Booty), posting them, and compiling them on DVDs to be sold. Not to sound prudish, but...yuck.

He blathers on in his profile about making these fetish tapes "For THE PEOPLE! [Taping] All Kinds, From Slim To Thick To BBW...Variety Makes The World Go Around." Yet, it's hard to claim body-image activism when most if not all of the women in his videos have no knowledge or consent of the movie magic happen right behind them.

Anyway, ladies, if you see some guy getting all Martin Scorsese with your ass, you know, punch him or something.

Ha ha, just kidding, heterosexuals can help too! But seriously, they don't want pictures of straight people. The "Shades of LGBTQI" project is looking for donations from the community; they want photographs -- physical or digital -- that have something to do with that ever-growing acronym of faggotry. And don't even try to pass a bunch of straights off as gays -- THEY CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING.

Any time period is fine, and images of normal daily life are particularly sought-after. Not all will be accepted -- the collection has some very specific criteria. They'll make copies of your pix on the spot, so you get to keep your original photos or DVDs or flash drives. Your donations will belong to the public library, for use in a variety of projects like research and books and films. (So you might want to get the subjects' permission before donating.) Here's where to go, and when:

Sunday, October 14, 2007
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library
1 Jose Sarria Court (16th Street just below Market)

Sorry about the short notice! Get cracking, photobugs. And do let us know if your pix get accepted, especially if you're gorgeous and nubile and fraught.

The Bay Area is home to many intriguing small businesses. Still, color us surprised that we've found in Juno Baby a local purveyor of high-quality children's educational products that manages to encapsulate what we like best in a company.

It's got the "mom & pop feel" of a local company. Juno Baby has a smaller, focused product base than like companies. And, yet, it can still stand shoulder to shoulder with the big boys like (Disney-owned) Baby Einstein and similar. The product strikes us as "honest," for lack of a better descriptor--its leverages Belinda Takahashi, Ph.D.'s expertise to arrange orchestral music rather than canned electronic tunes. Her husband, Adam Adelman, contributes his directorial know-how. They started the company based on their opinion that there was a lack of good, quality educational products for their own daughter.

Awards? They've got 'em -- tons of 'em, most recently two of the company's DVDs earned 2007 Parent's Choice Awards--which means that now all three of Juno Baby's DVDs have won this award. Impressive, to be sure, but the true test was sitting down, watching a number of the Juno baby videos and listening to the music CD with our toddler.

We (that's SFist Jer and his wife) agree that the music has more to it than other baby videos we've seen and most kid-oriented CDs we've listened to. We're not music experts ourselves, so we can't pin it down in technical terms. We can say that there are more, varied instruments and the singing patterns seem more varied as well. The characters participate in different parts of songs -- sometimes singing simultaneously, sometimes apart, often creating a rich, layered effect.

In our estimation, it isn't that Juno Baby is such a huge departure from the other quality kid's stuff out there. It's appealing because it's local and not oversaturated. Sure, the Baby Einstein (and similar) stuff looks great and has its cute touches, but it's EVERYWHERE--almost to the point where it seems mandated that your child MUST EXPERIENCE THIS PRODUCT. (Sub-message: OR YOU'RE NOT A GOOD PARENT).

Tonight’s episode focuses on the Rite of Spring, which is described by members of the orchestra as "sexy," "rock’n’roll" and "raw." MTT would not be our first choice to tell us about eroticism, but give him credit, he makes a fair attempt. The show meshes MTT’s trip to St Petersburg and Paris, excerpts from a SF symphony concert for families, historical anecdotes, Russian folk dancers, and many more surprises. It’s really easy to get into the show, it’s presented on an inviting tone, which is both musically smart yet easy to grasp. And it’s oddly addictive: there’s a narrative arc to the explanation of the musical piece which is quite compelling.

The companion web site has opened. We said last week that conductors, they do more than just wag the baton. In the Rite of Spring web site, you can actually wag your heart out, and conduct using your mouse.

Stricto sensus, it’s the orchestra which conducts you, but we are a sucker for interactive web sites, it's so web 2.0, so we go along with the game. We only missed four beats! You can look at the score with the same really neat moving indication of the beat, you can document the wild opening at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris in 1913, you can see how the meter shift through the score. You will learn, but it won't feel like you're studying.

And then it was pointed to us that, if you find the KQED broadcast times are inconvenient, you can purchase the DVDs too and watch at your own convenience. We like the shows so much, we're happy to plug them. Show runs tonight at 10pm and again Sunday at noon on KQED.

Sure, we've seen a lot of these movies before, but this is our chance to see studio archive prints of these classics in a big-screen theatre setting. DVDs just can't compare!

Some of the movies we're planning on seeing (see the full schedule here) are , in which Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy brave the 1906 earthquake, After The Thin Man, because we LOVE all the Thin Man movies and haven't ever seen any of them on the big screen, and Woody Allen's classic Take The Money and Run.

Image from Barbary Coast , playing 4/23-4/24 at the Reel San Francisco series at the Balboa

People seem to take particular delight in rummaging through the emotional trash of those who project an image of purity, and Adam's no disappointment: he gets tons of love notes from fans, and though he declines to accept any of them, he saves every lipstick-kissed note. (Our favorite one starts: "If you ever go gay..." why would he save that? We're intrigued.) Adam's sex drive threatens to burst from his seams at any moment; even as he ministers to a stripper, he's panting and sweating and, well, sprung. Only thoughts of eventual marriage to Cassie, his angelic girlfriend, keep him from going completely nuts. BUT OH F**K SHE'S IMPERILED BY A MURDEROUS BAND OF AFRICAN REBELS! And there ends part one. Great natural dialogue, complex characters, cool evocative art, and a gripping story; we can't wait for part 2. And for added credibility: the back cover of issue 1 features an ad for He-Man DVDs.

After the jump: The aliens from War of the World call for backup; and a bunch of college philosophers decide throw a dance party that saves the universe -- hey, it's what Burning Man sees when he looks in the mirror! And hey, go check out Isotope Comics' website for a new feature: YouTube-streamed video of obscure 50s cinema! Monster movies, teen exploitation flicks; all dynamite stuff. We love it.

Hey, no one told us Hothead Supervisor Chris Daly was going to be on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night! About O'Reilly, of course. We're so bummed we missed this! (Usual Suspects, will you be selling DVDs like you did with Ammiano on the Daily Show?)

Transcript is here, but here's the highlights:

Man, we can't believe we missed this! Full transcript after the jump:

How did you get into puppet making?
Actually that’s an odd story. When living in Santa Cruz I used to come up to SF with my friend Caitlyn for good times. Occasionally this would include some lucky dumpster or street finds. Once we scoped a lower Haight public trash full of treasures including a pair of eyes from a ventriloquist dummy, and a book on experimental animation. I hid the eyes so they peeped out of my sleeve, and could control them to look in any direction. It spooked some folks..

Many people find puppets inherently creepy, why do you think that is?
Maybe because perverts are always carrying around creepy puppets in dark alleys! No but seriously, it’s probably the moving eyes that are most scary, because they can be so lifelike. A spirit could almost be living in that animated inanimate matter. Clay and foam want to live too.. Pee noo keey ohh.

What's your take on the San Francisco Art scene?
The SF 'Art scene’ is a total smorgasbord, or grab bag- you never know what you are going to get. There’s so much variety of type and context and quality, you are bound to find some great treasures and more to disappoint. I just tend to gravitate toward what grabs me and filter out the rest- it can be difficult to maintain an appetite with such an overabundance of taste offerings.

When is the next craft boutique you're involved with?
Thanks for askin’. I will be vending at the Whitney Young Carnival on Saturday August 13th, 12-6pm, at the Whitney Young Child Development Center at 100 Whitney Young Circle, San Francisco. I think you’ll have to use a web map to find that one. Anyhoo it’s a fundraiser for the center and should have a good variety of stuff. I will be selling my recycling art/jewelry and some puppet DVDs and comics too. Also later this fall I plan to organize a local recycling artist/designer fair, stay tuned.

Any advice for artists trying to make it here?
As an artist who is trying to make it (from day to day beyond) all I can say is chase your dreams and eat good food. If your art can put that on the table, then all the better.

Best public restroom in San Francisco:
Let’s say for now: It’s Tops!

Okay, we're a little late to the party on this one (what? We thought your party started at 9, not 7! Our bad!) -- but our new favorite TV channel's got to be the C-SPAN of San Francisco politics, SFGTV Channel 26.

You can download specific meetings to watch on your computer, or check out DVDs of particular meetings from the library -- but what we're totally loving about Channel 26 is your total lack of control about what shows up! Where else could we totally just randomly turn on the TV and see..... Gavin Newsom joking with reporters...? ....Tom Ammiano telling the Board of Supes that "I've been out for years"....? ...or Chris Daly shouting out, "ONE COUNTRY, INDIVISIBLE" over everyone else's "under God" during the Pledge of Allegiance? It's like old-school MTV, only with Sean Elsbernd (and no "wubba wubba wubba").

Day or night, the videotapes of justice whir on -- whether Chris Daly's boredly twiddling his pen, or Gerardo Sandoval's running into a meeting right after he's marked "absent" on the roll call, or SFist Jackson's pleading to get us a press pass -- it's awesome. Hey, any chance SFGTV could start airing Animal Care and Control dog hearings too?