Rainbow Skate: As if rollerskating couldn't get any gayer, Redwood Roller Rink has made Wednesday nights exclusive queer. So tonight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and even a smattering of straight folks come together to whirl around the rink. Starts at 8 p.m.; $7 covers both admission and skate rental.Benefit for the Metropolitan Arts and Technology's Drama Program: Help the kids won't you? Metropolitan High -- you know, that large school on Treat Street, targeting......

My Morning Jacket's newest live recording entitled The 2006-2007 New Year’s Eve Skit Picture Disc Skit (Could they pick a longer title?) is available now through the band's website. The recording is from their New Year's Eve performance at the Fillmore last year. If you were there, you would know that it was a "Oregon Trail"-themed performance. (OMG, how cool is that!) But we're curious, how do you pull off an "Oregon Trail"-themed party?......

-- The Misfits: a little post-Halloween chillingness -- sexy, bare-chested, punk chillingness, that is -- for you tonight. Behold: the Misfits play a few ditties along with the Hellbillys and the Memphis Murder Men tonight at 8 p.m. at DNA Lounge; $20. -- Dodo for President: Written by Mark Eisman (LA Weekly's Best Playwright 2006, two-time [daytime] Emmy nominee) returns with this politcomedy. It's a "funny, quirky and touching look at friendships, presidential campaigns......

-- Girls soccer coach suspended after mooning (i.e.., "exposing his buttocks to" [hee]) his opponents. [SFGate] -- Niners' Nolan stands by his QB, Alex Smith. Aw. Also, "at least the Niners didn't get shutout." (Dude. Ouch.) [Examiner, SJ Merc] -- Increasing lack of loyalty over at Yahoo. [ValleyWag] -- Neither heavy nor metal, Metallica went acoustic/funk at the Bridge School Benefit. [SJ Merc] -- 1 dead, 2 hospitalized after shootings in the city of......

-- Benefit Show Honoring Erno "Tattoo" Szabady: Local rock bands Slowfinger, DickDusters, and the Walker Brothers get together to raise money for a burial "niche" for well-known, recently deceased tattoo artist, Szabady. Show starts at 8 p.m. at Peacock Lounge, 552 Haight Street (at Fillmore); $10-$15. -- Live-in Maid (Cama adentro): Norma Aleandro's dramatic role, about a "wealthy woman and her live-in housekeeper" dealing with the economic collapse in Argentina, finally arrives in the......

-- Dreamgirls: Jennifer Hudson's performance as Effie White won her an Academy Award, and her end of Act I nervous breakdown ("And I Am Telling You") blew audiences to the back wall of the theatre. . She is the reason to see this movie. It also features Anika Noni Rose, a former A.C.T. student. Check out this musical loosely based on the rise of the Supremes tonight at 7 p.m. at the Castro Theatre,......

-- "Given" (featuring artists Darwin Bell, Bret Hansen, and Danyol): Winner of SF Weekly’s "Best Polaroid Artist" award, Darwin Bell, makes clever, energetic pieces from the text he finds around the city, snapped up by his trusty Polaroid. Come check out his work, along with equally-talented artists Bret Hanson and Danyol, at this opening reception party starting at 6:30 p.m.-9 p.m. at 575 Castro (at 18th St. [formerly Harvey Milk's Camera Store]); admission is......

San Francisco socialites have been fellated for far too long by such hard-hitting glossies as 7x7 Magazine and San Francisco Magazine. Hell, even the pages from new society (excuse me, “philanthropy”) rag Benefit Magazine -- "the Lifestyle of Giving” is its tagline, God help us -- might lead you to believe that the upper crust would like nothing more than to head over to Bayview-Hunters Point and act as human shields from gunfire, saving the......

Hey, SFist Krissy already told you about this, but we're going to remind! Go to the Benefit to Save Internet Radio at the Bottom of the Hill tonight. Bagel Radio Ted and SoMa FM Elise from SoMa FM are picking the tunes, and a bunch of favorite local bands will play too. 1233 17th St (x Connecticut), 6 p.m., and $3 (but give more). Other events: --The Fillmore Jazz Festival continues all day today (10-6)......

A very sincere thank you to the reader who forwarded along this picture of former Mrs. Gavin Newsom Kimberly Guilfoyle with her baby boy Ronan Anthony Villency. All together: awwwwwww! And this got us thinking: what's going on with the rest of Gavin's squeezes these days? Here's the results of our Google searching! Sofia Milos: The Scientologist girlfriend! Sofia (watch out, the site plays execrable music when you load it up) was recently spotted at......

Tonight at the venerable New Langton Arts (1246 Folsom St between 8th and 9th), it's the Opening Reception for Myth by Method, an exhibition that explores the unfolding of narrative through drawing, video, collage, sculpture, and music, with works by SF's Katrina Lamb and New York-based collective Lansing-Dreiden. Lamb and Lansing-Dreiden share an interest in synthesizing the realms of art and music, creating works that resonate with mythology, fantasy, and even daily life. The reception......

So earlier today, we heard that Alex Tourk resigned as Gavin's campaign manager. It was a bit curious, a bit odd, but these things happen, although whenever somebody mentions that they are leaving for "personal reasons" the mind does tend to go to certain places. But no matter where your mind wandered, we have a feeling it didn't wander as far as what really happened because the Chron is reporting that Tourk quit mainly because Gavin had an affair with Tourk's wife, Ruby Rippey-Tourk. Rippey-Tourk (and woah, what a name) was Gavin's appointments secretary at the time....

Starting next Wednesday, we're wishing the Rickshaw Stop a very Happy 3rd Anniversary! In the last three years the venue has presented shows with everyone from Jonathan Richman to Silversun Pickups and has hosted all manner of wacky special events. Our favorite memory was an early show by Phosphorescent, and a pretty fun time on New Year's Eve in '05. They're celebrating their anniversary with a three day festival featuring a different style of......

strong>Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 76 people plus two dummies and one dog....

SFist Rita is on vacation, so we're guest-reading the weeklies for her this week. Plus, it's the last weekly week of 2006, so we will be tallying up this year's picks to anoint a Weekly of the Year at the end of this post. Last week's winner and in at 4th place for 2006 with 6.5 WotW points, the Metro: Gary Singh on Rudy Rucker's new book Mathematicians in Love. Cover: Year in Review for......

Tonight at Biscuits and Blues (401 Mason St.), legendary New Orleans pianist, Henry Butler performs solo piano, combining the classical and jazz elements he absorbed at Louisiana School for the Blind and Southern University with the gospel, blues and R&B sounds he heard growing up in New Orleans. (8pm & 10pm shows) Saturday Grab a boombox and head on over to Mission Dolores Park (18th and Dolores) for Unsilent Night 2006, composer Phil Kline’s annual......

Cultural Learnings of Blogosphere for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of -Ist-a-verse Jagshemash! Borat is a hit. It's getting rave reviews, grossing millions, and definitely the most quotable thing we've seen in ages. But Borat seems to have missed most of the -ist cities, and we were all wondering how the film would have been different if he'd made his way around the world on the -ist tour. In Shanghai, Borat would be observing Inane Learnings......

Speaking of cleaning up the streets, people on Polk Street are trying to have a major rehaul done in an attempt to make it less grimy. Twenty-nine commercial spaces are either vacant or under construction along the Lower Polk corridor and all the businesses and developers are looking to help clean the area up in order to increase their business. For whatever reason, they think that having to climb over transvestite heroin junkies nodding out isn't the kind of thing people want to do if they come to a neighborhood. And also, lots of vacancies equals more crime and the more crime the more vacancies and so on and so forth. ...

Tenant Relief Not to be confused with the popular hemhorroid remedy, Proposition H, if passed, would increase the amount of money landlords pay evicted tenants forced out by condo conversions, planned demolitions and everyone's favorite, the OMI (owner move-in, though OMI sounds like an abbreviation for something equally unpleasant and embarrassing as hemhorroids). Additional money would go to elderly and disabled tenants and tenants with children. Tonight, the Housing Rights Committee hosts an Evening......

As fall settles in and another calendar page gets turned, thoughts turn from bbq's and vacations to holidays and the realization that '06 is coming to an end. With all that going on, with change in the air, we wonder what is it that made that makes the -ists ponder? ...

If riding the N Judah isn't your idea of fun, then check out tonight's Ladies’ Night Benefit at Muddy Waters (512 Valencia at 16th). Benefitting the weekly drop-in program for homeless women, the 6-9 p.m. event features photography from the past Ladies' Nights, a raffle, and a DJ. Photo by Kari Orvik, from the Ladies' Night program Have an event you want to see in SFist Tonight? Send it our way!......

In Color 2 (2475 Third Street, Suite 251 at 22nd Street) The Ghana Youth Photo Project Opening Benefit Reception: Fri., Aug. 25, 6-9 p.m. Last October San Francisco Camerawork’s youth mentoring program First Exposures sponsored Jamie Lloyd’s trip to West Africa to bring a photography program to 11 youths in Ghana’s capital city of Accra. The children not only learned a new skill but were also given the opportunity to visually represent their country, culture,......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate on......

We’ve been on tour of sorts this week, but since it’s for our day job we regret to inform you that there’s nothing very rock about it. We are happy to say that we’re meeting some fellow –ists along the way though. Last night we met and chatted with Kyle and Nicole from DCist. We commiserated with Kyle about the burden of keeping up too many blogs (check out his excellent music blog Information Leafblower)......

Foreign Cinema's Gallery (2534 Mission between 21st & 22nd) Benefit for R.A. McBride and Julie Lindow's book, Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres and Christian Bruno's Film, Strand: A Natural History of Cinema Tuesday, MAY 16, 2006, 7-11pm Come enjoy a taste of San Francisco’s rich film history at this art, film and book party benefit! Support two local artists and listen to wonderful live music, scrumptious free food as......

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: The only event for us is the IndieFest Benefit Party. Join our lucky pass winners, plus SFists Jackson, Eve, Rain and maybe (if we all beg her in the comments) Rita as we get our first look at what they're gonna be showing us at IndeiFest, as well as hear some great bands and DJs. It's all happening at the Rickshaw Stop at 8 p.m. Sunday: We're heading over to the Oakland Scottish......

Our good friends at SF IndieFest are gearing up for their 8th annual festival (February 2-14), with their Benefit Party this Saturday at the Rickshaw Stop. Musical acts Potion, Teenage Harlets, Tom Jonesing, and The Sermon will be performing, festival previews will be previewed, advance IndieFest tickets will be sold at a 10% discount, and there'll be drink specials all damn night long. Tickets are a $10 suggested donation (come on, it's for the......

Looking back on 2005, we think the year could be described as "The Year The Earth Fought Back". Starting out with late 2004's tsunami, through the summer of hurricanes - culminating in Katrina - and then the south asia earthquake... well, we don't want to jinx the rest of the year but we hope there isn't anything left for her to throw at us. While we sit around waiting, let's not forget that there......

Win it before you can buy it! We've got a copy of The Long Winters' excellent new Ultimatum EP that comes out October 11th. You can download the title track here and be sure to catch them opening for The Fiery Furnaces at Cafe Du Nord on Saturday. (Contest ends Weds. 10/5.) Tonight at the Rickshaw Stop Casiotone for the Painfully Alone celebrates a CD-single release, and at 12 Galaxies there's a Quintron and......