MUSIC: As we already mentioned, Why? is performing this evening along with Dose One, Cryptacize, DJ Odd Nosdam, DJ Jel. 8 p.m. // Great American Music Hall [859 O'Farrell] // $13 *THEATER: Eve Ensler's Obie Award-winning play the Vagina Monologues -- featuring such monologues as I Was Twelve, My Mother Slapped Me, My Angry Vagina, My Vagina Was My Village, The Little Coochie Snorcher, and more -- takes the stage in the Castro for......

Rope Burn by Still Flyin' (directed by Isobel Knowles) Still Flyin': Not to knock (heh) its former incarnation, the Odeon, but we love the Knockout. From obscure DJ nights to live bands, this nightclub seems to pull it off minus any affectation -- a difficult feat for any artsy venue to accomplish. Tonight head over to the Outer Mission spot and catch beloved San Francisco-based supergroup Still Flyin', along with rock-ish outfits Yellow Fever......

>-Berkeley loves them some traffic circles. ...

Courtney Love is scheduled for a book signing event at the Mission Bay Borders (200 King St. @ 3rd) to promote her "multi-textual memoir," Dirty Blonde. According to the official PR, the author will only sign her new book at this event. We assume that means don't bother asking Ms Courtney to autograph her late husband's albums or any appendages or pharmaceutical containers. (7pm) While we're not in the giving advice to celebrities business,......

Tonight October is SF Open Studios month, where art enthusiasts and wine and cheese chasers can traipse around the city and visit the studios of San Francisco artists and sign up on their mailing lists or buy their work. Tonight there are preview receptions featuring numerous artists at Belcher Studios and Gallery (69 Belcher, near Market, Church, 14th St.) and at Art Explosion Studios in two locations - 744 Alabama St. (between 19th &......

It’s about that time again (for the first time). Time to heap a whole year’s worth of praise on to several lucky and talented establishments that did us the kind service of getting us drunk. Yes indeed, ‘tis the season for recognizing the best of the best, the places that don’t settle for second place, that realize life is a marathon not a sprint, and any other clichéd ‘successories’ slogans you can think of. Crack-a-lack-a!!......

Four unrelated shootings in San Francisco over the long Labor Day weekend -- one at 24th and Alabama, one at Turk and Laguna, one at Harrison and 1st, and one in Visitacion Valley near the Cow Palace. Two victims are dead, two are in the hospital. PG&E announced that it figured out why that generator blew the other week underneath the Ralph Lauren store -- water leaked into the transformer, which caused an electrical short, which then blew up oil in the chamber used for insulation. Who uses oil for insulation? (Okay, engineers, enlighten us.) In other news, another transformer blew up on Market Street due to a failed cable splice, there was a power outage near UCSF when a tree blew into some power lines, and another outage in the Outer Mission when a car drove into a pole. And celebrating Labor Day the old-school way, 61 union members were arrested outside the Grand Hyatt at a sit-in over the year-long hotel strike. The union organizers have agreed to end the boycott against the Westin St. Francis because the WSF management has agreed to support several of the union's key demands. ...

Blurring the line between casual and problematic drinking, Barrespondent Drew does the ‘hard work’ of walking into unfamiliar bars of the bay area. That way if he gets nearly beaten to death for not being a local, you’ll at least have a negative review to serve as a heads up. My, what noble work! Coming to the slightly shocking realization that there just aren’t that many parts of town we haven’t completely worn out......