Before hitting the sundry of top-notch hilarity littering San Francisco during the 7th Annual SF Sketchfest - i.e., the sad clowns making funny - be sure to stop by tonight's opening party. No really, it's well worth the price of admission. And then some. They have Aimee Mann, Kristen Schaal (aka the girl from Flight of the Conchords), Paul F. Tompkins, Todd Barry, Rhys Darby, and DJs Skip & Shindog on-hand to perform. Plus,......

Boo. And behold: Halloween happenings for Saturday night, 10/27. -- Karla LaVey's Satanic Halloween Party & Unholy Variety Show: Satan reigns supreme tonight "thrashing black-metal bands, theremin warblers, psychobilly greasers, cruel electronic-noise wizards, 'tranceformer' dancers, cinematic oddities, and, of course, vast oceans of demon liquor" (all liquor is demonic liquor, blasphemer!) Starts at 8 p.m. at the The Knockout; sliding-scale admission. -- Surya Dub Halloween Mashdown: What's scarier than hanging out at Sixth Street......

A variety show and a chance to help out Killing My Lobster? But of course! The Romane Event, the monthly music/film/comedy/spoken word event at the Make Out Room the last Wednesday of every month and hosted by Paco Romane, is a benefit for local comedy group Killing My Lobster, and will feature their sketches and movies tonight. Looks like fabulous fabulist Harmon Leon'll be there too! $7-15 sliding scale, 8 p.m., at the Make Out......

Cars Grotto Nights presents Driving Obsession, a free night of reportage, science, and art in the form of a subversive Valentine to our cars at Mezzanine (444 Jessie St at Mint). This cabaret-style variety show features Bucky Sinister reading his show-stopping poem on NASCAR, Dr. Graham Fleming of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory explaining how he and others are using synthetic biology to create fuels for the future, Baghdad taxi driver/art student Mounaf Shaker's screens his......

Guest review by M.C- of The Standing Room, with pictures by Civic Center's SFMike. N.B.: No one reviewing this concert, and no one posting the review of this concert has any affiliation with either Falun Gong or the People's Republic of China. When we heard about the NTDTV Chinese New Year Spectacular at the Opera House this past weekend, we were absolutely certain we knew what to expect. In our tender youth, our parents dragged......

This is the time of year we feel deep sympathy for everyone working in retail, if solely for the neverending medley of Christmas music piped through so many of their workplaces in which we fear to tread. At this point, we would be more irritated if the hyper-sensitive car alarms in our neighborhood blared out "Jingle Bells" or "Deck the Halls" rather than the regular beep-uh-beep-uh-beep. To salve the retail ear wounds, might we......

Congratulations to Cement Brunette for winning our Second Gavin Caption Contest, with the entry: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and girlfriend Sofia Milos seen rehearsing their "I've Had The Time of My Life" Dirty Dancing number for the upcoming California Democratic Convention variety show.. Ha! In other news, we saw some more movies for the SFIFF, including the controversial The Bridge, about suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge. We also saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,......

Thanks to all for entering our Second Gavin Newsom SFist Caption Contest! We've been cracking up reading your hilarious entries! And the winner is...... San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and girlfriend Sofia Milos seen rehearsing their "I've Had The Time of My Life" Dirty Dancing number for the upcoming California Democratic Convention variety show. Hee hee! Commenter Cement Brunette, we'll be getting in touch with you to figure out where to send your prizes. Runners-up......

Saturday: We're going to the The Dark Room Theatre (2263 Mission Street, between 18th and 19th Streets ) to see "San Francisco’s only sketch tragedy group" The Problems' comedy variety show The Problems With Books. The show's at 10 p.m. this and every Saturday until May 27. Sunday: We're going to A Musical Benefit For Gwen Avery at the Brava Theater Center (2789 24th Street ). Avery, a local blues legend, has recently fallen......

Saturday: SFist Jackson tipped us off to the Swearing Festival starting at 7 at Edinburgh Castle. 5 hours of vulgar speech-related activity sounds like a party to us! Sunday: It's the Tour of California bike race! No, we're so not riding in it, but we're all set to watch it as it whips past us some time between 10 a.m. and 12:22 p.m. Monday: Yay! Presidents day means no (day job) work for this......

Have we ever mentioned how much we love the Primitive Screwhead? Our infatuation began when we attended their final performance of Evil Dead: Live, and we've been slavering to see what they'd do next. They'd mentioned something about a Re-Animator: Live, but, dude, we're part of the OnDemand generation and we want something NOW!...

Get together for drinks and lit at the Makeout Room this Saturday....