The gay gods have punished me and my vanity in the worst manner possible, saddling me with a low-grade yet persistent flu bug for the past three weeks. Which means no gym time before one of the High Holy days of gay San Francisco Summer, Dore Alley, at which I will be bartending, more or less with the expectation that I will do so shirtless. Oh, the humanity.

I know, I know, my blog has fallen under neglect and disrepair. But I’m not one of these writers who stay productive while reclining in a sick bed. Unless you count compulsively surfing the “Watch Instantly” feature on Netflix a productive use of time.

So let me toss out the regular reminder of the next Barbershop Reading Series event, after which I will rest up for slinging drinks. No doubt I will see a few of you perverts out this weekend.

Please join us for the next event in the Barbershop Reading Series. Playing off the atmosphere of a community barbershop, our events feature live literary readings paired with musical performances.

Our August 1st event will feature readings by a husband-and-wife pair of poets:

OSCAR BERMEO is the author of the poetry chapbooks Anywhere Avenue, Palimpsest and Heaven Below. Recent poems appear in BorderSenses, In the Grove and Spindle, among others. Oscar is a BRIO (Bronx Recognizes Its Own), IWL (Intergenerational Writers Lab) and VONA (Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation) poetry fellow. He lives in Oakland with his wife, poeta Barbara Jane Reyes.

BARBARA JANE REYES is an adjunct professor in Philippine Studies at USF. Her work has been published in Asian Pacific American Journal, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, Parthenon West Review, and elsewhere. Barbara is the author of Gravities of Center (Arkipelago, 2003), and Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish, 2005), which received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. Her third book, Diwata, is forthcoming in 2010 from BOA Editions. She reviews small press books by Asian Pacific Islander American authors for Hyphen magazine’s blog.

Also reading will be BRENT FLUTY, a member of the Barbershop Writing Group, a workshop running in conjunction with the Barbershop Reading Series and led by series host Michael McAllister. Click here for more info on the Barbershop Writing Group. Brent graduated from University of Oklahoma with a B.A. in Geography with focus on Latin American studies. He is a Gardener by profession, who writes in his off time

Our musical guest will be San Francisco-based singer-songwriter TERESE TAYLOR. The Village Voice said of Taylor: “She can veer from lonely backwoods laments to precise, grinding Mission Of Burma-like instrumentals and back. Her music is intuitive and mysterious, filled with personal in-jokes and painful memories, a puzzle that is meant to be felt and experienced, not solved.”

Details:

Joe’s Barbershop
2150 Market St (between Church and Sanchez)

Our first two events played to full houses, so we suggest arriving early, especially if you want to kick back in one of the barber chairs.

Saturday, August 1st, at 8 pm
SUGGESTED donation: $5 (everyone welcome)

That donation helps to cover our expenses and buys you highly addictive Kettle Salt and Pepper potato chips, baked goods, cold beer, and a Diet Coke or two.

We can always use volunteers to help set up and clean up afterward. Volunteers pay no cover and earn good karma. If interested, email Michael McAllister.

In this year of matrimony I was all charged up for Pride, ready to fight my way with the Fireplug down to Market Street so that, if nothing else, we could be counted among the festive hordes. Friday night I did my part to welcome visitors to San Francisco, mixing up Cape Cods and Jack and Cokes at the bar in a five-hour, non-sop blur, after which I hauled home MAJOR cash along with the flu that’s been knocking around the city.

So I missed the march.

Tomorrow is the last meeting of my first Barbershop Writing Group, the workshop I’ve been leading since early May. Since nobody dropped out, and everyone submitted new writing several times each, I think I can call it a success. Looking forward to a little downtime before the next workshop (I’m thinking late September) so that I can get more work done on my own book.

And of course I need to update everyone on the other project:

Our debut event was an amazing night, and we hope you’ll join us for the next event in the Barbershop Reading Series. Normally the events will happen the first Saturday of every month, but because of the Fourth of July holiday, we’ll be skipping a week. So just keep in mind 7/11.

The evening will feature readings by a couple members of the Barbershop Writing Group, a workshop running in conjunction with the Barbershop Reading Series and led by series host Michael McAllister. Click here for more info on the Barbershop Writing Group.

Pete Kushmeider gave up pursuing a fortune in high tech in order to write, blog, and dote on his husband and partner of 23 years. He writes about the diversity of people and experiences that are the beating heart of everyday San Francisco. His stories have been published in the SoMa Literary Review.

Chris Jensen is a marketer by day and a freelancer by night. A former contributor to Out Magazine, he currently writes for SF Weekly when he’s not struggling to write page 2 of his novel.

Our musical guest, Bay Area-based singer-songwriter Kate Isenberg, combines her intricate guitar style and soulful, clear voice to create a very San Francisco form of storytelling folk-pop. Her album THE TIME COMES ON HUMMING TRACKS has been featured on KFOG’s Acoustic Sunrise, and was named one of 2007′s top three female singer-songwriter albums by the Indie Acoustic Project, a nationwide contest whose past winners include Vienna Teng, Allison Krauss, and Greg Brown. Check out her MySpace page for music samples.

Our featured author will be K.M. Soehnlein, author of THE WORLD OF NORMAL BOYS, which won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men’s Fiction, and YOU CAN SAY YOU KNEW ME WHEN. He will be reading from his novel-in-progress, a sequal to THE WORLD OF NORMAL BOYS. He teaches in the MFA writing program at the University of San Francisco.

Details:

Joe’s Barbershop
2150 Market St (between Church and Sanchez)

Our debut event was standing-room only, so we suggest arriving early, especially if you want to kick back in one of the barber chairs.

Saturday, July 11th, at 8 pm
SUGGESTED donation: $5 (everyone welcome)

That donation helps to cover our expenses and buys you highly addictive Kettle Salt and Pepper potato chips, baked goods, cold beer, and a Diet Coke or two.

We can always use volunteers to help set up and clean up afterward. Volunteers pay no cover and earn good karma. If interested, email Michael McAllister.