Although San Francisco's surprise

mayoral election — bearing

the immortal tagline "Willie

versus Silly" — has

attracted some national

attention, a more intriguing

wrinkle occurred last week in

the city's runoff election for

district attorney. A pair of

police whistle-blowers revealed

that challenger Bill Fazio had

been nabbed and briefly

questioned last December during

a vice squad raid on Mason

Street's Dragon Oriental

Massage. Far be it from us to

condemn a hard-working city

official's efforts to unwind in

a luxurious local emporium.

Unfortunately, the

tough-on-crime Fazio has

proffered an excuse more suited

to a Cinemax erotic thriller than the

California Bar Journal. It

turns out the sometime

prosecutor (working for the

defense) had only checked into

the Dragon to meet a secret

witness in an important case.

The secretive witness insisted

that the jurist come alone,

without his trusty briefcase

(Fazio did not disclose whether

Huggy Bear was part of the

discussion). Always alert for a

good "third space" public

meeting area where the art of

conversation is still honored,

we called the Dragon's kindly

receptionist for details.

We're pleased to see that Motor

Driven Bimbo the debut album

from Rockbitch is finally

available, but somehow it still

seems we'll be missing the full

experience until the British

band makes a stateside tour. The

band's Golden Condom Award

takes rock-and-roll audience

participation to a level that

was barely imagined back when

Elvis' first hip thrust set

hearts pounding at the Tupelo

High talent show. At each

concert, Rockbitch throws a

condom into the crowd and

invites the fan who snags it to

spend the length of the next

song having his or her way with

the aptly named band member,

Luci the Stage Slut. After all

those years we spent swooning

over Menudo and Meatloaf, we

can't deny the appeal, and the

more recent Platinum Condom

Award (a foursome on the band's

plaid blanket of free love)

outdoes any of those hoary

Zeppelin hotel room stories for

soignée lubricity. As the

band members tell it, this is less a

gimmick than an extension of the

sex-positive philosophy that

drives them. A "matriarchal

community" bound by its belief

in "the liberation of all people

through free and open

sexuality," the band cites

among its influences not Iggy or

Ziggy, but Wilhelm Reich and

Betty Dodson. The GCA, it

explains, is a "protest against

an industry that uses sex as

hype but never follows through."

Plus, the band acknowledges,

"we like to shag."

This kind of thinking hasn't

endeared Rockbitch to the decidedly

less liberated authorities —

they've been banned in Britain,

fined in Germany, and denied

visas in Canada, for what was to

be its North American debut.

(Our vocal Canadian

correspondents are welcome to tell

us why UK citizens would need

visas to visit Canada —

though the comeliness of several

of the girlz makes us wonder if

they're actually from the UK at

all.) Presumably the fans are

more appreciative. But while you

might expect the Golden Condom

to set off a stampede that would

make the mosh pit at Woodstock

99 look like tea at the Regency,

it seems that a little

old-fashioned modesty is not

unheard of. "Men tend to back

down," laments guitarist and

backing vocalist Babe. "Women go

for it."

Dot-com stores have figured out

something Aunt Irma and Grandpa

Enoch always knew: The best way

to rack up end-of-year mindshare

is presents, and lots of them.

The annual holiday incentives,

though, have become more like

potlatches — or maybe

they've just figured out that

the more money they lose, the

happier the shareholders get.

Consequently, this year's

Christmas shopping doesn't

require spending a penny on

anything but postage. If you can

bear the gruesome HTML of pretty

much every coupon site, you can

let Amazon, buy.com,

bigstar.com, and CDNow foot the

bill for your loved ones' Ty2K

Beanie Babies and "crush"

videos. Barnesandnoble.com has

been particularly egregious

about spamming out the code to

get $10 off a $10 purchase, but

even it hasn't topped E-Trade's

trick of throwing 75 bucks at

anything with a pulse, 10

C-notes, and a Hotmail account.

This burning-down-the-village

gambit has resulted in a pretty

hilarious sniping war, played

out in double-paged ad spreads

in The Wall Street Journal, as

Merrill Lynch, which sniffed at

the Rabblenet in the first

place, tries to make like

there's something, well, non-U

about luring investors with

money. At least they won't nudge

us for thank-you notes like Aunt

Irma.

Just when it seemed that every

piece of music ever recorded had

been converted into a dance mix,

two former Trappist monks and a

former nun have formed a band

called Anno Domini and recorded

a club-friendly version of the

"Hallelujah Chorus" from

Handel's Messiah. Although

the single itself is no more

ridiculous than the dance mix of

Elton John's "Candle in the Wind

1997," the group itself is an

anomaly. The monks, brothers

Josef and Stefan, respectively,

still hold to their vows of

silence, so all communication

from the group comes through

vocalist Sister Dominique

(rumors that Josef and Stefan

were incommunicado after winning

Rockbitch's Platinum Condom

could not be confirmed). Dodging

any suggestions that she might

club until 5 a.m., high on cheap

crank, she says, "Just because

we enjoy the music, it doesn't

mean we subscribe to the culture

that goes with it." She stopped

short of a John Lithgow–

style ban on breakdancing.

While some wags

have suggested the whole thing

is a hoax, the Messiah, composed

for an Anglican audience, would

not run into serious blasphemy

problems. This is not the case

for deathless British has-been

Sir Cliff Richard, whose latest

single, a recording of the

Lord's Prayer set to the tune of

"Auld Lang Syne," has been

topping the British charts. But

God is not mocked, and Sir

Cliff's punishment is beginning

right here on earth: The

long-awaited release of the

Hamsterdance is expected to

knock Richard out of the top

spot any minute now.

Catholicism WOW! Sister

Dominique makes it clear that

the "Messiah" dance mix was a

response to concerns that

"religion lacked fun," and

Bishop of Liverpool James Jones

is now making similar comments

about "Heaven," the new Brooklyn

Museum–style exhibit at the

Tate Gallery that features,

along with Christ mounted on a

pontoon (floating on water, we

can only hope), a statue of

Diana, Princess of Wales, as the

Virgin Mary. "I see this

exhibition as a challenge to

Christians to communicate our

faith at the end of this

millennium with great

imagination and compassion,"

said the Bishop. So once again,

they're celebrating, not making

fun. Just remember, you read it

here first.