BY HOOK OR BY CROOK

Even cowgirls get the blues, and ? after the death of her father ? one named Shy tires of her lonesome home on the range and relocates to San Francisco, determined to sink herself into a “life of crime.” There in the City by the Bay, Shy hooks up with street-savvy, androgynous Valentine for a wild tour of the Golden Gate's subcultural hot spots. Shy finds the girl of her dreams, as well as a flophouse-hotel suite to call her own, and proceeds upon a dubious moneymaking opportunity. Meanwhile Valentine continues on her own quest, an ill-advised, obsessive search for his/her long-lost birth mother. A little bit country and a little bit rock and roll, this transgendered opus plays like a butch buddy “Midnight Cowboy,” with an infusion of Jack Keroac and the spirit of the Beat Poets. Its pulsating mini-digital video cinematography and jazzy narrative plunge you into the San Francisco lesbian underground, a close-knit community that is alternatively rowdy and tender, outrageous and vulnerable, as its characters move fluidly through a spectrum of identities, from lipstick to butch. Co-conceived and created by the two lead actors, legends of the SF underground, BY HOOK OR BY CROOK is a brave and often hilarious exploration of human fallibility, resilience and dignity.