Spunk!

There's something quite provocative here. The blues is sexy, spiritual music. And although white people have capitalized, appropriated and enjoyed the blues for nearly 100 years, it's still also black music. An oppressed population finds outlets any way it can. And two outlets that can't be legislated out of being-though humanity's spared no effort to attempt it-is who you can worship and who you can sex with. In that vein, the dominance of songs in the blues canon about sex and God are wonderfully subversive ways of dealing with a marginalized, dehumanized existence. It may also be why the blues has influenced so much popular music and why it can be heard in just about every country on Earth. For in their purest moments, the worship of God and the reaching of sexual climax have raw, undiluted passion at their heart. As goes the blues, so goes life.

Paramour at the Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park, San Diego, (619) 239-2255. Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 7 p.m. Through Oct. 31. $22-$39; It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues at San Diego Repertory Theater, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego, (619) 544-1000. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 7 p.m. Through Sun. $21-$32.