Dan Dion's Blog, page 3

O'Reilly's Oyster Fest- Cake, Jackie Greene , Raveonettes

Oyster Fest

Here are some belated photos from the annual O'Reilly's Oyster Fest in San Francisco. This used to be a free event in Washington Square Park in North Beach, but moved to Fort Mason, became a ticketed event, and started having much bigger bands. With the right weather, the view of the Golden Gate Bridge can be positively muralistic.

Cake by Dan Dion

This year's headliner was the Sacramento-baked irono-comic band CAKE. I'm a huge fan. While other bands are spewing cliche-filled "love" songs, Cake says they "want  a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket."  I can appreciate that in a big way.

The Raveonettes are a Danish band that were cool, and a good bit of variety to a typical festival, but to be honest, really shouldn't be playing in the daylight.

Also on the bill was Jackie Greene, who has been anointed by the Deadhead set as some kind of second coming. Of what, I'm not sure. He's talented and can certainly kick out the jams. A few years ago he was sporting black leather jackets, but now seems to be channeling the freewheelin' spirit of Bob Dylan. His drummer got caught in Bay Bridge traffic, so renaissance man and former Tubes drummer Prairie Prince sat in and did a fantastic job. Mad props to Fiachra O'Shaugnessy, Myles O'Reilly, and O'Reilly's Irish Bar and Restaurant for pulling of another cool local fest.

Jackie Greene by Dan Dion

Raveonettes by Dan Dion

¡SATIRISTAS! Axis Mundi show at the Actors' Gang Theater

Pre-Party at the Actors' Gang

On election night, we had our inaugural monthly SATIRISTAS show at The Actors' Gang Theater as part of their new Axis Mundi series. The theme for the month was Prop 19, so we invited a few Satiristas as well as some other like-minded friends for an herbal comedic summit.

Our thanks to all the performers, producers, musicians, artists, and theater staff who made it happen. Among them,Robert Dubac, Shana Sosin, Barbara Romen, Carmella Cardina, Matt Besser, Gary Shapiro, Tere Joyce, Franklyn Ajaye, Rick Shapiro, Dylan Brody, Jimmy Dore, Tracy Newman, Johnny Dam, Ron Shock, Gary Stockdale, Max Neutra, and Tim Robbins.

Below are some photos from the event.

Next show is Tuesday, Dec. 7th. The first one was jammed full. It's pay-what-you-can, but RSVP here.

¡Viva Las Satiristas!- Paul Provenza & Dan Dion

Robert Dubac & Paul Provenza





Gary Stockdale and The Band





The Crowd- Sold Out!





Jimmy Dore

Johnny Dam

Matt Besser





Tere Joyce





Ron Shock





Franklyn Ajaye  (with Max Neutra)





Gary Shapiro





Rick Shapiro





Tracy Newman





Dylan Brody





The Reveal! Max Neutra's Painting

Comedy Festival Season 2010

Comedy festival season 2010 has come and gone, and here are some of my favorite portraits I made this year in Montreal, Vancouver, and San Francisco.

Bo Burnham at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival

Steve Martin at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival

Kevin Smith at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival

Tim Minchin at the Just for Laughs Festival

Ngaio Bealum at SF Comedy Day

Mae Martin at the Vancouver Global ComedyFest

Jon Dore at the Vancouver Global ComedyFest

Matt Kirshen at the Vancouver Global ComedyFest

Dave Foley at the Vancouver Global ComedyFest

Maria Bamford at the Vancouver Global ComedyFest

James Smith at the Global ComedyFest

Tom Green at the Vancouver Global ComedyFest

A. Whitney Brown at the Other Cafe Reunion

Barry Sobel and Robin Williams at the Other Cafe Reunion

Paula Poundstone at the Other Cafe Reunion

In Praise of Les Paul

In Praise of Les Paul

Les Paul died a year ago today. I wanted to share these two images of him. His passing was the loss of one of the greatest innovators in music, as he created the first solid-body electric guitar, which as I understand it is an instrument that is really starting to catch on.

Les Paul at The Iridium near Lincoln Center in 1998

This first time I saw him was at the original Iridium nightclub in New York in 1998. He was so amazing and spry, busting out licks and dropping Monica Lewinsky jokes between songs. Every once in a while his arthritic hands would seize up on him and he'd have to pull his left hand over the guitar neck and slap his picking hand to get it to release. But he did it so fluidly and in rhythm that it seemed to be part of the song.

I went back to the new Iridium on Times Square almost ten years later and he didn't seem to be a day older. After each of his weekly performances, he sat at a table to meet every fan that stood in line. What an epic human.

Les Paul at The Iridium in Times Square circa 2007

Les Paul

In Praise of Les Paul

Les Paul died a year ago today. I wanted to share these two images of him. His passing was the loss of one of the greatest innovators in music, as he created the first solid-body electric guitar, which as I understand it is an instrument that is really starting to catch on.

Les Paul at The Iridium near Lincoln Center in 1998

This first time I saw him was at the original Iridium nightclub in New York in 1998. He was so amazing and spry, busting out licks and dropping Monica Lewinsky jokes between songs. Every once in a while his arthritic hands would seize up on him and he'd have to pull his left hand over the guitar neck and slap his picking hand to get it to release. But he did it so fluidly and in rhythm that it seemed to be part of the song.

I went back to the new Iridium on Times Square almost ten years later and he didn't seem to be a day older. After each of his weekly performances, he sat at a table to meet every fan that stood in line. What an epic human.

Les Paul at The Iridium in Times Square circa 2007

Feature in SF Chronicle

PHOTOGRAPHER CAPTURES COMICS AFTER THE LAUGHS

by Sam Whiting

Portrait of Photographer Dan Dion by Chad Ziemendorf

After 18 years of shooting stand-up in San Francisco, Dan Dion knows what doesn't work – a photo of a comic trying to be funny.

This rules out onstage action, and it also rules out offstage gags. What's left is backstage after the show, when the artist is wrung out and relaxed.

"Stand-up comedy pictures, performing?" he asks, rhetorically. "Boring. It's the portrait that has always gotten me." A hundred of these appear in "Satiristas!: Comedians, Contrarians, Raconteurs & Vulgarians" (It Books, $29.99), a collaboration with Showtime host Paul Provenza that has taken four years to put together.

"What I want is one moment that tells you who they are instead of making you laugh," says Dion, 39, on a night last week when he is on duty at the Punch Line, where he is house photographer. His framed prints crowd the walls, but few of the subjects are smiling and none are laughing.

"Most photographers, when they photograph a comedian, their first thought is that the picture has to be funny," he says. "Funny pictures have a rapidly descending half-life. Each time you see it, it's half as funny."

On this night, Dion is at the Punch Line to shoot the headliner, Maria Bamford. She is third on, but Dion doesn't mind sitting through two opening acts. He grew up a "comedy nerd," listening to Alex Bennett's radio show while growing up on a vineyard in Kenwood, the son of a Pan Am captain-winemaker.

At Santa Clara University, Dion was the comedy director. He had an annual budget of $10,000 but always spent $15,000 flying in the likes of P.J. O'Rourke and Second City to perform on the Jesuit campus.

Comedian Dave Chappelle photographed by Dan Dion

During summers he worked at a portrait studio, shooting seniors for high school yearbooks. These two extracurricular jobs merged into a real one. Straight out of school, in 1993, he was hired to work the door at Holy City Zoo. At the time, 8-by-10-inch head shots were what passed for promotional materials. "They were universally horrible," says Dion, who started making his own pictures of the talent.

"I had the arrogance to include personality and context," he says. "I wasn't shooting as a sales tool."

The comedians liked that, and word got around. Along the way he also got jobs shooting for the San Francisco Giants and for concert venues. But musicians and athletes were never his kind. No comic ever made him wait two hours at a dressing room door. They'd invite him in right away for a beer, which is about as long as it took him to make a portrait. Ten minutes, 20 max.

"The greatest reason for my popularity among the comedians is that I don't try to make them funny. I have a visceral reaction against open-mouth mugging," he says, shrugging his shoulders, palms facing up in the standard "I don't know why I'm funny" gesture.

When he is not shooting comedy for the Punch Line and Cobb's Comedy Club, Dion is house photographer for the Fillmore, where he met his wife, Lisa. They are raising two kids in an Edwardian in the Panhandle. Dion has had an exhibition at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and his work is displayed annually at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal. He estimates there are maybe five photographers worldwide who do what he does, and fewer still who don't do what he doesn't do.

Rachel Dratch photographed by Dan Dion

"I don't make dishonest portraits," he says, describing that crime as "taking a political satirist like Bill Maher and putting him in a kiddie pool. It's funny but it's dishonest. … It makes no sense."

Among those shot for the book, with accompanying Q&As by Provenza, are Robin Williams, Stephen Colbert, Judd Apatow, Lily Tomlin, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno and the Smothers Brothers. Those photographed but not interviewed include Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Dana Carvey, Chris Rock and David Spade.

Here is a selection of portraits with Dion's explanations.

Damon Wayans: "That was taken at the Punch Line 15 years ago. It was an exercise in color. I knew he had this jacket and I wanted to do a deep, deep, deep black shot. The toothpick was just what he had in his hand. I didn't want to make him look like a hoodlum, but I wanted to make him look kind of badass."

Rachel Dratch: "That was during SF Sketchfest. She's actually standing on top of a counter in her dressing room. I love the way her foot is cocked. She's so at ease."

Dave Chappelle: "I've known him for a long time. I haven't seen a shot that gets him better than that. I absolutely love this photo with the cigarette and Muhammad Ali screaming like it's coming out of his chest."

George Carlin: "It's the last picture in the book, a quick shot after a show at Davies Symphony Hall, in 1999. He's in the concertmaster's office sitting on a piano. I gave him the picture the next time I saw him. Ten years later my partner, Paul, mentions the picture to him and he says, 'That's the picture I want to be remembered by.' Two weeks later he's dead."

George Carlin photographed by Dan Dion

Fred Willard photographed by Dan Dion

Fred Willard: "I got to his house in L.A. and I see the hot tub and a rubber duck. I say 'OK, that's going to be the shot.' It's just got a little bit of silliness to it. It's not a structured joke."

E-mail Sam Whiting at swhiting@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Link to Original Article in SFGate

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/26/DDVO1EIDEN.DTL#ixzz0v6k6nvkF

Satiristas in San Francisco

The third leg of our book tour was back in the Bay Area for a hometown (mine) celebration. Paul has spent a lot of time here as well- I saw him in the lead in Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapine Agile in the nineties another woman and a universe ago. How could I have known that the same debonair thespian onstage then would someday tongue-kiss me in the middle of the Soho House in New York as an animated deterrent to some shit-faced woman by pretending we were queer. He's that kind of friend.

Comedians Mark Pitta and Paul Provenza at the Throckmorton in Mill Valley celebrating ¡Satiristas!

Tuesday was perhaps the best show out of the four. Not taking away anything from the comics in our other ones, but this one epitomized what ¡Satiristas! is about. Comic Mark Pitta has built a fantastic following for his weekly show at the Throckmorton in Mill Valley, and we decided to jolt their NPR/Whole Foods/ Yoga-matted world with a massive assholistic dose of Doug Stanhope.

There's a through line in the book about "preaching to the converted"- questioning if there is there any effect of satire on a crowd of like-minded people. Well, nobody is like-minded when it comes to Stanhope, and he had the sold-out, well-heeled crowed alternately howling with laughter and some with outrage. His chunk about Susan Boyle is nothing short of brilliant.

Comedian Doug Stanhope at the Throckmorton in Mill Valley celebrating ¡Satiristas!

But it wasn't just Stanhope's set that set this show apart. A surprise drop-in by Don Novello was the perfect contrast to what was to come with Stanhope and Jamie Kilstein. Novello is so gentle and kind in both style and substance- he's the tickly feather of comedy compared to the sledgehammer rants of the other two. Rick Overton came up for the show, providing a delicious mix of insight and absurdity, and not-in-the-book but smart and subtle Myq Kaplan was in keeping with our charge of exposing people to new, intelligent voices. Many thanks to Pitta and the Mercer family for making the Throckmorton show such a success, and for helping us sell a ton of books.

Comedian Don Novello at the Throckmorton in Mill Valley celebrating ¡Satiristas!

In the audience was Kelly Carlin, who came up from LA to support the show, lending a post-mortem presence of the great one. In the back of the theater was none other than the legendaryt Mort Sahl, newly transplanted to Marin County after his third or fourth marriage collapsed. He's a cranky old man, but at 83, he has nothing to prove, I guess. He turned down our request for an interview years ago, claiming "I'm not good in groups," but which I've learned means if the book isn't about him specifically, he's not going to contribute. But we included his portrait within Paul's introduction anyway, since he's such a giant within the art form. He hates to have his photo taken offstage, and had refused me about fifteen years ago when I asked, but five years ago he let me shoot him before a show at The Purple Onion. That time he was amiable and talkative. THIS time was different.

At intermission I reintroduced myself to him and asked if he liked his photo. His reply: "No, now that you asked, I DON'T! And I don't like the book, either!"

I looked at him and gave him my best Hollywood smile, "That's great, Mort! So nice to hear! Thanks!"  If he was going to dick with me, I was going to dick right back.

Later, about halfway through the set, Doug walks Mort. I was outside when it happened and as the Godfather of political satire doddered back to his car I overheard him say to his handler "They have the FREEDOM to, but…"

Wednesday we were at The Booksmith in the Haight, which is essentially my neighborhood. Paul and I have become much better at this than the first time, which is good because it was all captured and broadcast on FORA.tv The audience included fine-art photographer, author, and co-burner Michael Light, as well as comic, agitator, and former producing partner Harmon Leon.

Comedian Will Durst at The Punch Line in San Francisco celebrating ¡Satiristas!

Thursday was our show at the Punch Line, which was packed for the event, and featured book sales by Green Apple, Jamie, headliner Will Durst, and an proper set by Paul, which couldn't have gone better. We'd kind of piggy-backed on to a show that was already booked, but the fact that Durst was there that weekend was perfect synchronicity. He's been one of my favorite comics since I dove into the local stand-up scene at 14 (Will once asked me from stage if I'd ever been kissed), and I ended up working for him at The Holy City Zoo when he and Deb bought it in 1992. I've probably seen 30 full Durst sets in my life, and each one had a huge chunk of amazing new material. I don't think there's a more prolific political satirist on the planet, really.  Robin Williams came down for the show, as he seems to be making room under his wing for Jamie, much like he did for Eddie Izzard years ago. The Punch is my home club, with forty of my portraits lining the walls, so the night for me was a triumph of sorts.

We also had two killer interviews while Paul and I were together in SF, with Rick Kleffel's Agony Column on  Bookotron and   Robert Pollie' 7th Avenue Project on KUSP. If you're a glutton for all things ¡Satiristas! these are essential listening.

Will Durst, Paul Provenza, Jamie Kilstein, and Robin Williams at The Punch Line in San Francisco Celebrating ¡Satiristas!

Friday we were back in Marin at Book Passage, one of the most author-friendly bookstores in the country. They have readings virtually every night, and this was our best-attended store event, with about 50 people spilling out amongst the chairs and bookshelves. Maybe it's all the Terry Gross these North Bayers listen to, but theirs was also the best Q&A session.

And then the whirlwind was over. Three weeks of great comedy, interviews, and support. Now it's up to Paul and me to push this book without a HarperCollins-funded tour. The next post will cover the Montreal Just for Laughs festival; stay tuned for future shows in the works for Miami, Chicago, and Vancouver.

¡Viva Las Satiristas!

Dan Dion

Anthony Bourdain

A demi-god to the foodie set, Anthony Bourdain is the Hunter S. Thompson of culinary writing. His book Kitchen Confidential is a seminal and groundbreaking work in the genre of smart-ass chef lit. He's also the most hilarious guest judge on Top Chef. My favorite line: "It tastes like home cooking- just not a home I want to eat in." And this from his book A Cook's Tour: "In short they want you to feel that same level of discomfort approaching a plate of food that so many of us used to feel about sex…Do I overstate the case? Go to Wisconsin. Spend an hour in an airport or food court in the Midwest; watch the pale, doughy masses of pale faced, Pringle fattened, morbidly obese teenagers. Then tell me I'm worried about nothing. These are the end products of the Masterminds of Safety and Ethics, bulked up on cheese that contains no cheese, chips fried in oil that really isn't oil, overcooked gray disks of what might have once upon a time been meat, a steady diet of ho-hos and muffins, butterless popcorn, sugarless soda, flavorless light beer. A docile, uncomprehending herd, led slowly to dumb, lingering, and joyless slaughter."

************

I have to admit that this shoot was a bit of an ambush, which I don't like to do. But I had no connection to him, so I went the direct route. After his signing at Book Passage I approached him and gave him a copy of ¡SATIRISTAS!, explaining what it was and that I wanted to photograph him because of his humor. Well- he humored me with a very quick shoot.