Trouble

Apropos of nothing, I was thinking about bar fights the other day.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've managed to mostly avoid bar fights (or fights in general) during my many dissolute years of bar-going. Honestly, that shit is stupid and I fail to understand why someone looking at your girl would provoke a violent outrage, but I guess some assholes just want to get into fights and need an excuse.

I can only think of a handful of times when I've even been close to getting in a fight, like:

- A couple of weeks after I made the catastrophically bad decision to move to Santa Cruz, one of the Worst Places on Earth, I was playing pool in this dive called the 1007 Club. I hadn't noticed that more people had come in and someone had written his name on the chalkboard to play next game. I started to put quarters in and the guy totally got in my face and was screaming about how he was next and I was like "Fine, whatever, you're next." Looking back now, I realize that he was probably tweaked out of his fucking gourd on meth, like 90% of everyone between the ages of 19 and 29 in that Godforsaken shithole.

- One weekend afternoon I was hanging out at the Columbus Cafe with my ex-wife and drinking and playing the jukebox and shit and this little angry Scotsman started hitting on her right in front of me. He offered to buy her a drink and I said "It's cool, I've got her drinks" and he FUCKING FLIPPED OUT and told me to come outside to settle this and I was like "No, I think I'll pass" and then the bartender kicked him out. The bartender told us the guy works on a ship and comes in whenever they dock in SF and gets into fights.

(Knowing what I know now, I should have let him buy her the drink, then jumped up and pointed and said "A-HA!!! NOW SHE'S YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM!!!" and run out.)

Other times I've been on the periphery of big fights that have started and spilled out into the street. Whatever, that shit is boring.

UPDATE: Humorously, between the time when I first wrote this and now, when I'm about to post it, I have learned that Famous Teen Mom Bristol Palin almost got herself into a bar fight recently:

Bristol Palin was riding the mechanical bull at a Hollywood bar in front of a throng of paparazzi and reality TV cameras, when a rude drunk yelled, "Your mother's a whore!" Bristol marched up to the man, jutted out her new chin, and got into a heated confrontation:

Man: She [your mother] is evil.
Bristol: You want her dead?
Man: You know what, if there is a hell, and I don't think there is one, she will be there.
Bristol: OK, why is that?
Man: She's evil. She's evil.
Bristol: Is it because you're a homosexual?
Man: Pretty much!
Bristol: And that's why you hate her?
Man: And why do you say I'm a homosexual?
Bristol: Because I can tell you are.

On the way out she gets into a fight with another pair of angry drunks, including one who yells, "White trash Wasilla!" and "You fucking bitch!" as Bristol and friends storm out of the bar.

"Is it because you're a homosexual"? Who the fuck talks like that? Although, I gotta say, it's probably a drag when you're out for your usual night on the town being followed by a camera crew and wearing an ugly sweatshirt that says "Empowered" on the front with a Lightning Bolt Cross and some stranger says "Your mother's evil." I guess that would suck.

(This all happened at Saddle Ranch, right? That place blows.)

In which TK enters the craft brewing business

Despite the fact that I have no facial hair and a BMI solidly within normal range, yesterday I joined the ranks of Dudes Who Brew Beer At Home. Surprisingly enough, I enjoyed the brewing process (well, Stage 1 of it, anyway). "Surprising" because I don't really like anything.

I'm not going to break down the whole 4-hour process into what I did because that would be boring. Basically, it involves a lot of boiling things and then cooling things off and then boiling something else and then cooling that off and then pouring yeast into it. It's more difficult than making Top Ramen and less difficult than making chili. It does make your house smell strongly beer-y, for lack of a better word. Not really like beer, but like something related to beer. It's this sort of fetid, yeast-y, agricultural smell. Also, hops smell a lot like marijuana. This must be the reason that so many homebrew guys are probably also big stoners. (The guy who taught the beer-making class I went to acknowledged this reality on several occasions.) I can also say that the process felt vaguely medieval. I can easily see a monk in 1358 doing pretty much the same thing I did, except over an open fire instead of a Kenmore stovetop and also probably not while occasionally checking in on the 49ers.

I ended up with 5 gallons of a dark brown liquid. It is now in the Primary Fermenter, which sounds complicated but which is actually a 5-gallon bucket with an airlock on the top, which is actually a bendy plastic tube that lets gasses out but doesn't let anything floating around in. Every few minutes, the Primary Fermenter makes a reverse-burping sound and, I suppose, gasses come out, although you can't smell anything.

Saturday we do the First Racking, which means we pour the stuff out of the Primary Fermenter and into the Secondary Fermenter, which is a big glass jug. We should have beer ready to drink in like a month. I'll keep you posted.

If this goes well, I'm going to start distilling my own whiskey at home. Maybe I'll grow some tobacco too. And opium poppies can't be that hard to grow, right? Never mind. Disregard that. I never said that.

Finally, a relationship column we can actually relate to.

Man, do I ever love the Chronicle's Union Squared feature. If you're not familiar, they're little stories about couples who are getting married or just got married or whatever. It has, like, how they met - which is usually some way PRETTY FUCKING CUTE - and what their wedding was like and all that stuff. Like, here's an excerpt from this week's example, Megan and Tyler (quick context: both are Stanford grads):

Although Stanford is a backdrop throughout Heinen and Mobley's love story, they did not start dating there. In fact, they met the night of a formal dance on campus, and Heinen had another date. It wasn't until two years later, when both had graduated and moved to San Francisco, that they ran into each other repeatedly while bar-hopping one night in the Marina.

"At the last bar, he left," Heinen said. "And then he came back in to get my number."

See? Cute! They met (or re-met) bar-hopping in the Marina! I'm not even going to say anything mean. You're already thinking it for me. Why do I have to do all the work?

SO that's all great and stuff but what I really want to see is a weekly column about Relationships That Didn't Work Out, you know, like the Normal Relationships Everyone Has. We'll call it either Dolores Parked or Mission Failed. It'll be like this:

Daniel and Juliana met at happy hour at Casanova. "I was totally just there to get free drinks from the bartender, who I used to bang, and make fun of the crowd, but Daniel was actually kinda cool," Juliana remembers. "So we did some key bumps in the bathroom and then later went to this super lame house party, but it was cool because we had some pints of J&B and the music didn't completely suck."

After some fumbling, unprotected sex, the newly-minted couple stopped at Walgreens the next morning for Plan B before enjoying a leisurely brunch and bottomless mimosas. The next few weeks, Daniel happily recounts, passed in a dreamy blur of taquerias, Netflix, and artisanal cocktails. And more sex, but with more condoms and less blackouts.

Oh, but fate, it seemed, would intervene: Juliana got a job writing copy for an agency in LA. "I mean, duh, I had been making like ten bucks an hour temping, so it was a total no-brainer," she recounts. Daniel, after asking who was getting her apartment, bid her a bittersweet farewell. "She was a cool enough chick, I guess," he muses now.

Juliana is happy in LA and, after being shown a picture of Daniel and reminded who he is, offers that she has nothing but warm thoughts about him. For his part, Daniel is now seeing his coworker's roommate. "I still kinda wish I had gotten her apartment," he reflects on Juliana. Love can hurt, it is true.

Trip Report: Los Cabos

At my advanced age, I could give a shit about adventure tourism. You and William T. Vollmann can go dodge mortar fire in Tripoli or live amongst the whores of Bangladesh. Fuck that noise, my chief concern is how long it takes to get a drink and why the fucking pool closes at 8:00 pm instead of 10:00.



Well, not entirely. When I go to places like New York or London or some shit like that, I'm super into running around and going to museums and all that jazz. I guess I'm talking about the kind of vacation where you just lay around in the sun and drink. Do kids like to do that still? Oh, I guess everyone has to make it extra difficult and do it on a beach in India (NOT GOA, THAT SHIT IS SO PLAYED, I KNOW) or Bali or Madagascar or some place. I know that the harder it is to get to and the more primitive the conditions the better, right?



Well, fuck that. I'm all about it being easy and that's why we just went to this all-inclusive resort in Los Cabos called the Riu Santa Fe. We got a total deal on this place - like $200 a night, which includes all the food and alcohol you want.



That's right. ALL THE DRINKS YOU WANT. INCLUDED. That means they essentially gave us the room. I've run up $200 bar tabs on vacation in 45 minutes, so you can see why the Riu Santa Fe probably lost money on our visit.



The crowd was interesting. It was basically 50-50 Mexicans (well, I assume they were Mexicans; they were Spanish-speaking and darker-skinned; I mean, they could have been Honduran or whatever but I just got the Mexican vibe from them) and Americans. Seemed like a place where Mexicans go to vacation, too. The line at the Los Cabos airport for the Mexico City flight was longer than for the Phoenix flight, anyway. But I digress. Of the Americans, it tended towards a bit younger and, for whatever reason, sort of Jersey Shore-ish. I mean, a lot of elaborate tattoos and backwards baseball caps and gold chains and chicks who dressed for dinner by putting on skintight electric blue dresses that ended just below crotch level and 6" heels. Interesting. There were also a smattering of older couples and families with kids, and also some Australians.







The resort was huge and loosely organized around this central plaza area that was clearly meant to evoke the plaza in a Mexican town but without any stray dogs or non-English-speaking Mexicans. Instead, there were a couple of outdoor bars and a stage where they had some form of live entertainment every night. Entertainment beyond the bartenders - who, make no mistake, were unflailingly cheerful and incredibly fast - making odd rainbow-layered shooters for the assembled blockheads to enjoy. The entertainment veered from Resort Cheesy to Really Weird, but hey, it was something to look at whilst enjoying as many rounds of free drinks as you could put down before passing out.





Speaking of "free," it's nice to bring a stack of ones if you're coming to one of these places and tip frequently and with gusto. They really appreciate it and it makes you feel like less of a dick for watching someone make your drinks and then just saying "gracias" and walking away with them.









Oh, that brings up the Spanish Problem, which is, how much Spanish do you attempt if you don't really speak Spanish? Everyone who works there speaks enough English to get by, so is it weird or insulting to say "Dos pinas coladas, por favor" instead of "Two pina coladas, please"? I mean, does it seem kinda condescending? I could never figure it out. Also, why did the guy at the restaurant door say "Hola" to Americans but "Buenos dias" to Mexicans? I ended up usually ordering in English and then saying "Gracias" and walking away quickly, oddly ashamed. These are the kinds of things I worry about.



Anyway, the whole thing was a complete success, from a Morning Drinking and Total Relaxation standpoint. The food was actually really good, and the weather was nice and hot, and on the second day we found the quiet pool away from the thumping disco music and Vinnies whooping at each other and so forth. After a few days, though, I couldn't really handle the all-day all-night drinking any more and it was time to split.



The only other thing of note was the HUGE DOUCHEBAG who sat next to The Wife on the flight home. He got on in Phoenix and started braying at her immediately (she was one row ahead of me but I could hear his booming asshole voice from the back of the plane if I wanted) and I learned, involuntarily, that he lives in the Marina and had been in Scottsdale for some reason and had bought 3 bottles of champagne already earlier that day for "Sunday Funday" and just bought a place in "Pac Heights," although oddly it turned out to be near "Washington Square Park, I guess," which is, of course, nowhere near "Pac Heights" and I was trying to read and he blared on and on and on at her and finally I had to put in my headphones and turn up the music so loud it was almost painful just to drown out his piercing drunk voice. OK whew I'm alright now just had to get that out of my system.



(She also said that he showed her "every picture on his phone," and that they were mostly of him.)

Trip Report: Fresno!!!

A couple of weeks ago The Wife and I were watching the Giants lose again and they mentioned calling up someone from the Fresno Grizzlies and she said "We should go to a Fresno Grizzlies game sometime" and because we are People of Action and not just Big Talkers, on Saturday we found ourselves in a car driving to Fresno.



One of The Wife's work friends is from Fresno and I guess knows people associated with the team so we got tickets in what I assume is like Club Level here at AT&T Park and got some concessions vouchers and stuff like that. That's all nice, but the greatest gift we got was the hotel he recommended: The Picadilly Inn Shaw. I shall explain in just a moment.



Fresno is flat as a pool table and searingly hot, which felt great after the Non-Summer of High 50's in SF. When we got there it was 104. As far as I can tell, Fresno is comprised mainly of strip malls, chain restaurants, and chain everything else. So I guess it's like most of the rest of the country.



ANYWAY though. The Picadilly Inn! I don't know where to start. It was obviously built circa 1972 and NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE THEN. It is like visiting the set of a movie that's set in a hotel in 1972. I mean, look at our room!







That picture actually makes it look creepier than it was, which is sort of unbelievable. But it really did have that trapped-in-70s-amber vibe.



Anyway, our room was on the second floor and overlooked this garden where they were setting up for a wedding. We were kind of absently watching through the window when The Wife started to notice something. "I think there's 2 brides," she said.



GET. THE. FUCK. OUT.



So they're setting up and we decide to hit the bar up for a drink and guess what? THERE'S SOME KIND OF RODEO CONVENTION at the SAME FUCKING HOTEL and the bar looks like a slightly spiffier Deadwood. I mean, all they needed was a player piano and a bartender with a handlebar mustache and those arm garter things.







On the way there, we pass one of those little signs that tell you where things are in the hotel and it said something like "Congratulations Roxanna and Noemi"!!!! AWESOME!!! I mean, here we are being all Too Cool For School from San Francisco and we walk right into a Lesbian Wedding in Fresno. Fresno! I misjudged you and feel bad now!



We got the drinks to go and hustled back to the room to watch the wedding. I can report that both brides wore white. They looked amazing and happy. CONGRATULATIONS, ROXANNA AND NOEMI!!!



Then we went to the baseball game. The stadium is in Downtown Fresno which has obviously seen better days. Apart from the people going to the game, downtown was populated exclusively by homeless people. We walked through this pedestrian mall thing from the parking garage to the ballpark. It had obviously been an effort to get people hanging around downtown but didn't work. As we passed one older homeless lady, she greeted us by saying "Suck it, bitch." AND A FINE GOOD EVENING TO YOU, MA'AM! Anyway, nothing you can't get anywhere in SF.



The park was really nice and obviously recently built. It was a delight to sit outside at night and watch a baseball game in shorts and a t-shirt. It was 90 degrees at 8:30 p.m.





I don't have much to say about the game. Barry Zito - remember him? - started for the Grizzlies and was doing OK until he sprained something and limped off the field. The other Grizzlies pitchers weren't very good. They lost.



The next day we drove home. This was uneventful except for a stop at the Carl's Jr. in Atwater, California. HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS I have never seen a bigger collection of weirdos and freaks than at the Carl's Jr. in Atwater, California.



The Atwater Carl's Jr. has 3 Yelp reviews! If I were a jackass enough to post Yelp reviews, here's what mine would say:



"I'm not sure who was more impressive, the Charles Manson clone with a neckbeard and prison tattoos who stared malevolently at my wife the whole time we were there or the Tweaker Family featuring the kid was unusual facial hair and a topknot ponytail and Morbidly Obese Uncle with a definite Lou Albano vibe, but the crowd at this Carl's Jr. made the backwoods family from 'Deliverance' look like the Algonquin Round Table.



"Also, I'm not 100% sure if anyone here has ever assembled a hamburger correctly, but it usually involves something more than randomly shoving a meat patty and a bun and some wilted lettuce into a paper sleeve.



"It did have a bathroom, though, and also a parking space in front of the door which facilitated our very rapid exit."



So, yeah. Fresno. There you go.

Today in Giants/Bachelorette News

WORLDS COLLIDING. Take it away, Us Magazine:

Bachelorette contestant Ben Flajnik may not have earned Ashley Hebert's final rose, but that doesn't mean he's sworn off dating forever.



In fact, a source tells Us Weekly the 28-year-old winemaker went out for drinks with Jennifer Love Hewitt last week in San Francisco. "She began pursuing him right after the finale aired," a source tells Us of the Can't Hardly Wait actress, 32.

Incidentally, isn't "Us Magazine" the weirdest name for a magazine about celebrities? They're not "us" at all! They're them!!! I think I kind of assumed that "Us" stood for "U.S.," like the United States of Celebrities or something, but I have no idea if that's right. If it's just "us," like you and me, that's fucked up.



BACK TO THE MATTER AT HAND. Ben F. from the Bachelorette going out for drinks with the winsome Jennifer Love Hewitt is only a 1-star story. IT GETS SO MUCH BETTER THOUGH.

Indeed, Hewitt hasn't been shy about showing her love for Flajnik, who placed second behind JP Rosenbaum on The Bachelorette's August 1 finale. "Omg! Ben f except my final rose!!! Gotta book a flight to Sonoma !!!:):)" Hewitt Tweeted August 2. And when the pair cozied up at San Francisco's Lion's Pub four days later, the actress was similarly smitten.



Though Flajnik initially stopped by the bar with San Francisco Giants player Cody Ross, he made a beeline for Hewitt after spotting her from across the room.

HOLD THE PHONE. So Ben just happened to be out with his boy, weak-hitting Giants outfielder Cody Ross, when he stopped by known Lower Pac Heights Dudebro Cruise Pit Lion Pub (not "Lion's Pub," but who's counting) and then just happened to espy Jennifer Love Hewitt who just happened to be trolling for spiky-haired popped-collared Chads at Lion's Pub? WHAT.



I have a few questions.



1. So when you're the second-place finisher on the Bachelorette and you're walking off the set, they just hand you phone numbers of professional athletes? Or did formerly-effective lineup-saddening Cody Ross (+ wife Summer Ross, I assume) just like the cut of Ben's jib so much that they called up the Guy Who Has Everyone's Number and say "Hey, put me in touch with Ben F. from the Bachelorette. I needs to hit up some Fruity Drink Palaces with that boy"? Is that how it works?



2. And Jennifer Love Hewitt was just hanging out at Lion Pub? What was she, just back from visiting the Party of Five house? (2311 Broadway, if you're curious. About a 10 minute walk from Lion Pub.)



3. You know what's good about Lion Pub? Here, let Jessica C. from San Mateo tell you: "I asked the Gorgeous Bartender what to order. He made me the most amazing Watermelon Vodka drink! It was crushed up watermelon and vodka. What more could you ask for." NOTHING, JESSICA C. YOU COULD ASK FOR NOTHING MORE THAN CRUSHED UP WATERMELON AND VODKA FROM A GORGEOUS BARTENDER.



4. This isn't really a question, but Jen, sweetheart, I assume you meant "accept my final rose," not "except my final rose." Either one is weird, but only the former comes close to being grammatically correct. Ugh, I just turned into a guy who corrects people's spelling on the Internet. UGH I JUST CORRECTED JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT'S SPELLING ON THE INTERNET. HIT ME IN THE FACE. I EXCEPT THIS PUNISHMENT.



Fast forward to the next day:

Hewitt seemed ecstatic the morning after. Although she didn't mention her date by name, she Tweeted Sunday: "Morning lovelys! I got lost in the most amazing sat! Just when you think u can't be surprised.... You are and it's awesome!"

SOMEBODY GOT LAID.



And apropos of nothing except this struck me as funny:

Did you misplace your Insanity Machine and accidentally leave it turned on?

I first heard it last night around maybe 7:30. It was a sound like a truck backing up, but just three beeps in a row.

BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP.

Of course, the first thing you think is, "That's a truck backing up" and resume to your normal activities.* As I did. Which was drinking a beer and watching "Locked Up Abroad" on DVR.

(Just in case you don't watch "Locked Up Abroad," let me give you some advice. When someone offers you $6,000 to smuggle cocaine on a plane from Lima to - well, it was Cape Town, South Africa in this one, but really, it applied to anywhere - DON'T DO IT. Also, great show. Also, the actors they use in the reenactments are always way better looking than the actual person. I mean, I almost want to fly a few kilos from Bogota to LA just to see what kind of hot dude they get to be me on the show.)

But then it goes off again. It seems louder! Like it's COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!

BEEEEP BEEEEP BEEEEEEP

So there I am like a crazy tweaker on a five-day run tearing the house apart looking for the hidden CIA camera except in this case it's not a hidden CIA camera it's a fucking beeping noise making thing. I pulled the smoke detector down and examined it like I could visually see where the noise was coming from or something. BUT IT WASN'T IN THE HOUSE because the next time I was outside taking the recycling out I heard it again EVEN LOUDER.

BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEP

ANYWAY, I know this story is way boring but I also SWEAR TO GOD it was a real noise because The Wife heard it too when she got home.

We didn't hear it again for a long time until 6:22 this morning when it went off like an Exterior Alarm Clock

BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP BEEEEEP

and we were lying in bed trying to sleep and then the dog decided that would be a good time to start licking himself so it was like BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP SLURP SLURP SLURP

and the cat, never one to be left out of any fun, started doing her "Hurt Cat" cry OWWWWW OWWWW OWWWWW that she does when she thinks she's not getting enough attention and at that point I just said fuck it and got up.

If that thing is still going off when I get home I'm going to freak out.

So the moral of the story is, if you left your Insanity Machine on in the vague area of my house, please come pick it up.


[*] True story, there's an alarm system/loudpseaker thing where I work and occasionally the security people come on and say shit like "There is an emergency situation on the fourth floor. Please listen for further information" and it''s usually some false alarm - well, since I've worked there, it's always been a false alarm, not usually - and then after a while the Security Person hops back on the intercom and says "The emergency situation on the fourth floor has been cleared. The emergency situation on the fourth floor has been cleared. Please resume to your normal activities." That's right, not "resume your normal activities," but "resume to." I've often wondered if that jacked syntax appears in the Operating Manual because it was badly translated from Chinese like alarm clock instructions, or if it was passed virally from the Ur-Security Person on down the line. Anyway.

More important brunch news

By now you guys know how important brunch is. (Wow, that's just 3 posts - a search for "brunch" on my blog returns like 10 posts.) Part of the importance of brunch is trying new places, so in that spirit we checked out Uva Enoteca in the Lower Haight for brunch on Saturday.

Not too crowded at 1 pm on Saturday. In fact, not crowded at all. It was just us (me, Wife, Sister), a table of like 7 hipsters, and one table with 2 girls. I was told there would be bottomless mimosas, but there were bottomless bellinis instead which I'm not too crazy about but whatever.

The food was pretty good. I got the fried eggs, which were 2 sunny side up eggs that arrived cold. Maybe not cold, maybe room temp. Still, warm would have been good. Came with what was advertised as "bacon" but I'm sure was pancetta. Also a salad and a little "potato cake" thing. The best part is that, pre-tip, the total tab was $60 for 3 people, including 3 bottomless bellinis. We ended up drinking 2 pitchers of them but based on the table of hipsters it looked like you could pretty much hang out all afternoon and keep getting pitchers brought to you.

Anyway, just OK, not great. 3 stars out of five.

Then we had pints on the back porch of Mad Dog and then some more things happened and the upshot is The Wife was super-hungover yesterday. The end.

Crime Report

Whoa, there is a lot of weirdness in the past 24 to 36 hours. Let's start off with Alex Trebek:

Alex Trebek, host of the television game show "Jeopardy," was injured early Tuesday as he chased a burglar in his San Francisco hotel.

The longtime game show host appeared on crutches Wednesday to host the National Geographic World Championship at Google Inc.'s Mountain View headquarters.

"It happened at 2:30 a.m., chasing a burglar down the hallway of my San Francisco hotel, when my Achilles tendon ruptured and I then fell on carpet, bruising the other leg in process. Surgery on Friday," Trebek said, according to Patch.com. A spokeswoman at the Marriott Marquis confirmed the incident took place at that hotel.

San Francisco police officials confirmed a burglary at a San Francisco hotel early Tuesday, but would not identify Trebek, 71, as the victim. Lt. Troy Dangerfield said two people were asleep in a hotel room when "around 3 a.m., one of the victims awoke to notice someone in the room and then noticed the suspect leaving the hotel room."

Hmmmm. Does anything about this sound perhaps maybe somewhat suspicious to you? I mean, how does some rando chick get into a hotel room in the middle of the night? I dfon't know about you, but I always use every goddam locking mechanism they have on the doors, and there's always one that keeps the door from being opened from the outside, like a chain or that weird U-lock thing that flips over the knob thing fuck I don't know what it's called but you know what I'm talking about.

Now, I don't want to engage in rank speculation, but I just want to say that it's possible - possible - that Alex and his +1 met the suspect, "Lucinda Moyers," at the View Lounge and closed that place and then maybe suggested they blow a couple of rails back in Alex's room and everyone was having a good time when Alex went to the bathroom and the +1 was otherwise engaged and Lucinda thought she'd make a break for it and grabbed his wallet and took off and Alex came out and was all "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT BITCH DOING" and took off down the hall and ruptured his Achilles. PROBABLY NOT, but I'm just saying it's possible.

I also love the pic that SFGate went with:

No flash photography! I'm doing key bumps over here! Aaaahhhhh! Bright light!

Let us now turn to the world of Aviation. Regular readers of this space are well-aware of my sometime troubles with Air Travel. I tried communicating with the airline, but by then the troubles have long passed and I'm not that mad anymore. Brothers "Jonathan and Luis Baez, both of Las Piedras, Puerto Rico," have a way of more directly and immediately communicating their dissatisfaction with their carrier: punch out the fucking pilot!!!!

A man punched an American Airlines pilot who kicked him off a flight from Miami, and he and his brother then attacked the pilot again before bystanders tackled the brothers in the terminal, officials said Thursday.

Jonathan and Luis Baez, both of Las Piedras, Puerto Rico, were arrested at Miami International Airport. They had been aboard American Airlines Flight 1755 bound for San Francisco on Wednesday night, according to an arrest affidavit.

While the plane taxied away from the gate, a flight attendant noticed 27-year-old Jonathan Baez was sleeping and had not buckled his seat belt, police said. She tried to wake him, but she told police that Baez was unresponsive and appeared to be intoxicated or on drugs.

The pilot turned the plane around and returned to gate D51.

Luis Baez, 29, decided to join his brother as he was being escorted off the plane. As the brothers walked toward the aircraft's exit door, they became belligerent, and Luis Baez told the pilot, "When you fly to San Juan I will have you killed," according to the arrest report.

The brothers walked off the plane, but then Jonathan Baez returned and punched the pilot in the face and hit the flight attendant in the shoulder when she tried to intervene, police said.

Both brothers attacked the pilot again in the jet bridge and chased him in the terminal, according to the arrest report.

Other flight crew members and passengers held down the brothers until police arrived.

The only appropriate sentence in a case like this: middle seats between two fat guys with colds for life.

Finally, let us turn to a crime that is shocking in the extreme because it occurred at a place where so many of us feel safe: the Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma. Some Guy from Tiburon and his girlfriend were taking the tour and whatnot when they ran into some Stranger Danger:

Officers arrested a man who was taking a tour of a brewery in Petaluma Tuesday evening after he allegedly robbed another tour member at knifepoint, police said.

Ben Davis, 26, of Windsor allegedly befriended the victim, a 24-year-old Tiburon man, and his girlfriend while taking a tour of the Lagunitas Brewing Company brewery.

Police said Davis confronted the victim with a knife in a restroom during the tour and demanded his wallet.

Davis allegedly took the wallet, left the brewery and drove away. Officers responded to the brewery around 5:20 p.m. and learned that the victim's girlfriend had taken a picture of Davis before the alleged robbery.

Now, I'm no Criminal Mastermind or anything, but I feel like once my victim photographs me, I'm either (a) calling off the Planned Bathroom Knife Robbery, or (b) taking the fucking camera too.

Anyway, Ben Davis of Windsor, way to harsh Tiburon Man's mellow.

Be careful out there, folks.

TK's Better Tour of San Francisco

Got some of the Wife's relatives in town! It's her brother, who grew up in Ireland and now lives in New Zealand, and his New Zealander kids. They're all super-nice and awesome and everything. I volunteered to show 'em around SF this afternoon. Now, anyone could go see the sea lions at Pier 39 and whatnot, but where's the fun in that? I have my own tour of SF that beats the shit out of that:

Portsmouth Square

Kearny and Clay Streets

"The Sydney Ducks were this Australian gang, duh, that pretty much owned the waterfront around Broadway and Pacific. On May 3, 1851, one of the Ducks was seen running out of a shop on the southern side of Portsmouth Square just before the building started burning. The fire destroyed something like 2000 buildings, and was so bright you could see it in Monterey. They apparently set the fire so they could loot shit when people fled. A few Aussies were lynched a couple of months later and that seemed to have the desired effect."

Erno Tattoo

252 Fillmore

"That's where I got my first tattoo. I was drinking with my friend Jim at 13% on Haight, which was this bar where the Underground SF is now, and I stood up and said 'I guess I'm gonna go get a tattoo,' and I walked up there and sat down and got one. I was pretty lit. The less said about the tattoo, the better. Erno's is long gone now. So is 13%."

Church of Satan

6114 California Street



Wiki can tell the story better than me:

The Black House is a building that formerly stood at 6114 California St. in San Francisco, California, in the United States. Though the building is sometimes referred to as a mansion, photographs of the building taken just before its destruction show that it was a moderately sized single family home, considerably smaller than the two small apartment buildings on either side of the property. According to public records, it was listed at 2,205 square feet and constructed in the year 1905.

The house was used by Anton LaVey as the headquarters of his Church of Satan from 1966 until his death in 1997. LaVey conducted Satanic seminars and rituals at the house; one of the most notorious such rituals was the Satanic baptism of his daughter Zeena Schreck in 1967, punctuated by LaVey speaking the words "Hail Satan!" over the nude body of a female acting as the 'Satanic Altar'.

Public ceremonies were performed at the house until 1972. LaVey lost ownership of the house in 1991 as the result of a court settlement resulting from his separation from Diane Hegarty, but LaVey was allowed to reside at the Black House until his death.

Following LaVey's death, members of the Church of Satan unsuccessfully attempted to raise funds to repurchase the house, and it was demolished on October 17, 2001. A duplex now stands in its place.

A duplex! Man, Satan, that fucking SUCKS.

Imperial Palace restaurant

816 Washington Street

"Two and a half stars on Yelp. Tammie W. says that 'the selection was rather heavy on pork and shrimp and gone were the forays into vegetarian choices,' whatever the fucks that means. But we don't care about the food. This used to be the Golden Dragon, site of the Golden Dragon Massacre, a shootout between the Joe Boys and Wah Ching on September 4, 1977. 5 people got killed and 11 injured. Even more tragic was James Woods' hair in the 1989 film True Believer, which was loosely based on the incident."



Nightmarish.

The Furniture Mart

1355 Market St.

"This is the future home of Twitter. Twitter may be cool and all, but I bet you anything they will never, ever have a party like Jack Davis had on his 50th birthday at the Furniture Mart penthouse. Here's how Cintra Wilson described it:

In a nutshell, for those of you from points elsewhere, this Jack Davis guy, an openly gay and notoriously "outrageous" political consultant who is generally believed to have gotten the last two S.F. mayors elected and whose current client is the 49ers, who are trying to get the voters to approve a bond initiative to finance their new stadium, had his friends throw him a 50th birthday party that was attended by a slurry of big polyurethane-headed politicos in smart little suits and ties. The party, replete with multi-sexual go-go sluts and a glory hole wall, climaxed with a guy named Steve Leyba getting a pentagram carved on his back and being pissed on and sodomized with a bottle of Jack Daniel's by my old friend, vampire/lesbian/dominatrix/Satanist/junkie/poet/performance-artist Danielle Willis.

Top that, Twitter. Also, more Satanists! Yay!"

Corner of Haight and Stanyan

Haight and Stanyan Streets

"Let's stop here for some weed."

Corner of Golden Gate and Hyde

Golden Gate and Hyde Streets

"That's the Post Office where the homeless guys pick up their SSI checks. Luckily, they have multiple opportunities to spend them directly outside."

Pier 39

Embarcadero and Beach Streets

"I gotta stop at Krazy Kaps and We Be Knives and then OF COURSE we can look at the sea lions. I'm not heartless. Also, Red Jack Saloon is like 4 blocks away and it's probably been long enough that they wouldn't remember last time I was there and I could go in for a pint."

That's it. I'm beat. KMAGYOYO.

Trip Report: Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

I just got back from visiting my Dad in Tennessee for his birthday (Happy Birthday, Dad! Please stop working harder than me, you're making me look bad!) and I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum for the first time in my life and you know what? Old-time country music stars were gangsta as fuck.

Oh, before we get to that, here's the sign on the front door:

No, those aren't my sandals reflected in the front door. I don't wear fucking sandals. Those are my adidas Samoas, though. Anyway, NO WEAPONS. First museum I've ever been to where you had to be told not to bring weapons in. It sure as fuck doesn't say NO WEAPONS on the front door of the Louvre! TAKE THAT YOU PUSSY-ASS FRENCH MUSEUM!!!

Anyway, these country music guys used to booze harder and take more drugs and do more chicks than anyone else. They were basically the Motley Crue of their day.

Check out Gram Parsons' sweet Nudie suit with the marijuana leaf embroidery:



This next thing, though, blew my mind. Hank Williams shot some squirrels and then had them mounted by a taxidermist to look like they were playing in a little squirrel band and then displayed this gross little tableau in his house. My picture of it didn't turn out well, but I found this one online:



Welcome these fellas to your nightmares for the next few weeks. Anyway, Hank Williams took painkillers by the fistful and was a full-time drunk and still was one of the most most influential songwriters for both country and rock of all time.

And how about George Jones? Here, he tells it best:

Once, when I had been drunk for several days, Shirley decided she would make it physically impossible for me to buy liquor. I lived about eight miles from Beaumont and the nearest liquor store. She knew I wouldn't walk that far to get booze, so she hid the keys to every car we owned and left. But she forgot about the lawn mower. I can vaguely remember my anger at not being able to find keys to anything that moved and looking longingly out a window at a light that shone over our property. There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine under a seat. A key glistening in the ignition.

I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did.

I fucking love George Jones. Here's some for you right now:

The Bachelorette: Anybody got a Dad they can spare?

Like Ashley Chipmunk, I am also currently on a Hometown Date, except that mine consists of drinking on my Dad's back patio until 1 a.m. in 80-degree heat and hanging out with the extended family, while Ashley's consists of a painful road trip across America where she is confronted by Greek ladies asking how soon can she drop everything and move to Atlanta because they need a waitress stat.

Anyway, I knew I said I probably couldn't do the recap but last night all of us were burnt out on boozing and so we gathered around the family TV and watched Ashley make a series of semi-awkward to outright painful visits to these losers' families. Up first is Constantine, who I was really hoping lived in a tenement in Greek Town somewhere but who sadly hails from a McMansion in a featureless suburb of Atlanta. It seems that his family runs Giorgio's but that's cool because ethnic food is ethnic food, right? Pumpkinhead and Chipmunk visit the restaurant and pretend to make food and I don't think that kitchen crew is Greek unless Greece has relocated to Oaxaca. Then we get on to the Family Portion and Mom immediately puts the screws on Chipmunk to relocate and then Dad offers that she has a "gorgeous personality" which is Greek for "I'd hit it" and then clearly at the urging of the producers they have a My Big Fat Greek Reality Show moment and do that circular dance around the dining room and then Dad makes it rain and throws money in the air like he's some old Greek 50 Cent and the whole thing is just sort of sad.

Next we're going to visit the factory where Ames was assembled! Oh, I mean Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, which is so white it makes "Leave It to Beaver" look like "The Wire." Ames's "family" look like leftovers from an 80's movie about preppies and his sister has a sixhead just like him and tells Chipmunk how "romantic" he is and, what, did you two used to date? Where's Dad, anyway? Oh, we find out Dad died. Then Stepdad died. This is very sad but also I hope someone looked at Ames for the Dad Murders of Chadd's Ford. Ames needs to prove that he's not gay, so natch he takes Ashley to the "most beautiful garden I know," GREAT JOB AMES just like any old straight guy would say and they have a picnic and he tries to romance her by lowering his robot head onto her face for Lip Engagement Sequence Number 47B and I think it's safe to say that Ames will be parked back in the garage at the end of this episode.

OK, off to Sonoma to meet Early Man Ben F.'s family. They tromp off to his winery to have the now-oblig. picnic and Chipmunk wants to know if there's anything she should know. "Well, actually," Ben says, "my father was a silverback gorilla," oh, no, wait, his Dad is dead too. All these dead Dads are bumming me out. OK, let's meet the fam. Well, his sister sure is a handsome lady! She assures Chipmunk that Ben is in touch with his emotions. Good thing, because Mom isn't exactly a waterfall of feeling. Something else may have happened but I kinda zoned out a little at this point and I was also playing Words With Friends at the same time. It's a good thing that whoever named Words With Friends didn't name other games too or checkers would be called Moving Discs Across a Flat Surface. But I digress.

Last stop: Long Island, to meet JP's fam. They start out with a little roller skating to "I Can't Fight This Feeling," and I guess the rights to that song are so cheap now that even "The Bachelorette" can afford them and why are we even doing this? Let's meet this family. Oh, thank God, Mom has the Classic Long Island accent. Look, JP has a Live Dad! Now we're getting somewhere. He sure doesn't say much, but at least he's still up and mobile. Everyone talks darkly about JP's last relationship and how much it fucked him up and by the way they're talking it sounded like he needed electroshock to get over this bitch and what the hell did she do? Ohhhhh, maybe that's why Dad's so quiet! Anyway, we all chow down on some lasagna and Mom hauls out the Embarrassing Photo and that's about it.

Back in LA, Chipmunk sits down with Chris Harrison and God save our fucking souls, we are going to rehash the Bentley thing one more fucking time. They recap the dates a little and it's clear that Ames is already her Gay Best Friend and they're totally going to have slumber parties and watch Audrey Hepburn movies and talk about boys.

Time for the cuts Yes, no surprise. Ames is let go and he talks about how "poetic" the whole thing has been like he could get any gayer. So the final three is Pumpkinhead and Early Man and GI Joe. Good luck with that.

New Bar Night: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

I finally got an iPhone on Friday. I didn't get one for a long time because they were only on AT&T and I don't get any AT&T signal in my house. Came to find out that nobody gets any AT&T signal anywhere in San Francisco, so that turned out to be a good move. I got a G1 instead and went with T-Mobile. I liked the G1 pretty well. Having an actual keyboard was helpful but damn that thing was slow. So anyway my contract was up and what it really came down to is that I can carry one box around instead of 2 (i.e., phone and iPod). So I upped with Verizon and got the iPhone.

So far, I pretty much love it except there's a definite learning curve with the keyboard. Also, why is there no notification light? On the G1 (and every other phone in the world, I think), there's like a little green light that blinks on the front of the phone if you have a new text or email. How hard would it have been to put that on there? Seems ridic. But no, I'm just bitching. I pretty much love it.

OK, so Saturday I happened to be at the Phoenix to catch the end of the Giants game (Romo FTS! [That's "for the save," I just made that up]) and we were trying to decide where to go next and I was all "Let's go to that new place on Mission that was on Mission Mission and Uptown Almanac!!!!" and people usually let me get my way when I've been drinking so off we went.

It's called Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem and they don't appear to have a website. In case you didn't know, that was the name of the Muppets band. (OF COURSE there's a Muppets wiki.) My initial reaction is that it's a retarded name for a bar. But whatever, what's inside?

Initial reaction is that it's pretty much just your basic bar. There's a cocktail list but it's not online and I didn't take a picture of it or anything. Not crazy about the beer selection so the chicks got some specialty cocktails and we got a couple of Bud tall cans. Bud is gross but I wanted something not so heavy and not Trumer.


I stole this picture from Grubstreet. Thanks, Grubstreet! They have a good slideshow of the whole place.

OK here's the background: this place was opened by the same people who own Tonic, on Russian Hill, apparently, and you might say that Tonic appeals to a different demographic than you typically find in the Mission (except for Blondie's, but that's another story). Now, of course I'm generalizing to some extent, and a full discussion of the Tribes of San Francisco is beyond the scope of this piece, but I think we can agree that there's a general "type" that's associated with the Mission and a general "type" that's associated with Russian Hill and they're not exactly the same type. Like there was a guy at the bar unironically wearing a peach Polo (and I mean an actual Polo, with the little Polo guy stitched on it) who smelled like cologne and had no visible tattoos. More power to this guy and all, but it was just a surprise is all I'm saying.

Then more stuff started to stand out. Like, there's a second bar in the back of the room that, don't get me wrong, is certainly convenient but it's just odd because you don't see that second bar thing much. Oh, and when I came back from the bathroom there was a chick at the table next to us climbing up onto her chair for reasons unknown and and I thought she was going to start table dancing but she didn't thank God.

ANYWAY this is probably more than you wanted to hear and it turned into like this fucking Sociology thesis and whatever it's a bar not a Social Experiment. It was crazy crowded by the time we left so keep that in mind. It's fine I guess. If you happened to be walking by on a Wednesday and wanted to stop in and get a drink there are worse places, I suppose, but I wouldn't make a point of coming here.

POSTSCRIPT: Over on Yelp (only 4 reviews as of this morning), reviewer Tom R. gives it two stars and says:

"Hipster irony is eating it's own tail"

and links to a Youtube video of the Muppet band.

Maybe I'm just dense, but I cannot figure out for the life of me what Tom R.'s point is. What does he mean, hipster irony eating its own tail? That's it's so ironic that it's not ironic any more? Because I don't think that has anything to do with this bar. Like the owners went "Wow, it would be so ironic to name this bar Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem"? That doesn't make any sense. Oh well. Maybe Tom R. is just more savvy of a cultural critic than I am.

Brief reviews of things from this weekend

Churchill: The newish bar on Church and 14th. Friday happy hour was like the 3rd or 4th time I've been there and it is always packed. At least during the times I go there. They are going to make SO MUCH MONEY. Anyway, I like the place OK, I guess. I'd like to go sometime when it's not crazy busy to get a better idea. I had a Pimm's Cup (give me a break - it was like 75 degrees out, that's like Crazy Surface of the Sun Hot in SF) that tasted a little weird, not sure why. The Sister's Moscow Mule was pretty badass, though. 7.5/10

Uber car service: We go outside, The Sister pushes a button on her iPhone, and we're getting into a black town car driven by "Mischa" 3 minutes later. I did not pay for this service, so it was a fucking awesome way to get across town. How can you not like riding in the back of a town car driven by a guy who may or may not be in the Russian mob and never takes off his sunglasses? 10/10

The Royal Cuckoo: Newish bar on Mission and Valencia. I don't know, it's probably better when it's dark out. We got there at 7:30 and it was still bright out and it didn't seem exactly right. I like the feel of the place, and there are the usual artisanal cocktails and hand-muddled herbs and whatever and also a guy showed up and started playing a Wurlitzer organ and we all got a little Twin Peaks-ed out and went across the street to Knockout for beers. I'll try it again, though. 6.8/10

Nickie's: I always forget how much I like Nickie's. Everyone there is super nice and it's got a great convivial vibe, which you want from a pub-feeling kind of place, and I always manage to get into a conversation with a stranger here, usually someone interesting. I gotta start going there more often. 8/10 [Oh look, I wrote about Nickie's in 2008 and said about the same things. Well, good to know it's still good.] [Also, Nickie's, your website auto-plays music! BAD!!! BAD!!!!]

The brunch I made at home on Sunday: Scrambled eggs with andouille sausage, green onion, and cheddar. Hash browns. Fresh fruit. Mimosas. Fucking heavenly. 10/10

Le Colonial: Sunday was like the perfect night to sit on the veranda (and I do not use that term lightly) and have what turned out to be some really, really good Vietnamese/French food. Again with the weird cocktails, though! I got a mojito and it had orange juice in it. Yuck. But the food was outstanding and it's a great atmosphere out there on a warm night. Fucking expensive as hell, but sometimes you just gotta go for it. 8.2/10

Guy Getting Shot by BART Police at Civic Center Station on Sunday Night: They got a report of a guy with an open container of alcohol acting drunk at Civic Center Station? Dude, that is EVERY DAY AT CIVIC CENTER STATION. Fuck, I'VE been that guy at Civic Center Station. Good thing I didn't get shot. Anyway, I'm sure that it will be determined that the cops acted reasonably and whatever. That's how these things always turn out. 3.5/10

Cedar Rapids: I guess I would describe it as "cute." It's a cute movie. There are a few laughs, and John C. Reilly should get nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role as the Huge Douchebag. He was really fucking phenomenal. Worth Netflixing, I guess.

Illegal Fireworks in the Mission Last Night: Jesus Christ, people, WHAT THE FUCK. It sounded like a fucking war out there. I chugged a bottle of wine around 10 to take the edge off so I could go to bed without having flashbacks triggered and then I realized I didn't have any flashbacks to trigger but it was still pretty intense and the wine helped anyway. 1/10

In which I discover the mysterious allure of auto racing.

ATTENTION FELLOW COASTAL ELITES:

I have journeyed into what passes for Middle America around here and have returned with some stunning news:

AUTO RACING IS SUPER BADASS.

Like all of us, I have made fun of NASCAR forever. I mean, who could possibly enjoy watching cars go around and around for a couple of hours? THAT'S STUPID. But guess what? It's like hockey or strippers or Bananas Foster. YOU HAVE TO SEE IT IN PERSON TO GET THE APPEAL.

Backstory: The Wife won this trip thing at work. Basically it included a night at this hotel in Santa Rosa and a big group dinner (for like 30 winners in her industry) at Johnny Garlic's, one of celebrity chef/professional irritant Guy Fieri's places, and then going to the Thunder Valley Casino Resort 200 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma on Saturday.

So I take it that it's kind of the minor leagues for NASCAR but I don't really know anything about NASCAR so I don't know how the whole thing works. The "real" NASCAR race with the famous drivers is on Sunday and that apparently is when 100,000 people show up and I hate crowds so I'm glad we weren't going to that. ANYWAY we got to watch it from a "Tower Suite" with free food and booze and they could have fat guys racing lawnmowers and if there's free food and booze I'd watch it.


That guy in front waving was the guy who put the whole thing on. Super nice guy.

So before we were all "Yeah, whatever, auto racing" but then you get there and the cars are whizzing by at like 100 mph and it is fucking DEAFENINGLY LOUD if you're outside and I don't know, there's something really cool about the whole thing. Early on I chose to be a fan of the #6 King Taco car driven by one Luis Martinez Jr. and at one point he was in 5th place but I think he finished last. After like 5 laps, I was totally into it, against every preconceived notion I had. Being in the Tower Suite probably helped with this but maybe it's cool just to be in the stands too.



So that's my discovery! Auto racing is fun! Now, I'm not sure I'm going to turn on the TV every Sunday or any Sunday at all and ever watch it again but seeing it in person is certainly impressive. Also, maybe this isn't typical of every race but by the end those cars were all beat to shit and had major body damage and parts hanging off them and shit. YAY FOR WRECKED STUFF.

(The less said about Johnny Garlic's the better. Part of this dinner was unlimited free wine, so that part was good. But honestly, Guy Fieri, is that was real "wagyu beef," I'm a cow.)

(Also, it strikes me as sorta funny that this is the most hetero thing I could possibly have done on Pride Weekend.)

Local bloggers frustrated in search for post-museum drinks

Went with Jessica and Stephen to SFMOMA today to check out some art. If you haven't seen "The Steins Collect," what the fuck are you waiting for? Do you hate art and beauty? What kind of fucked-up person are you? Go see it. Anyway.

We got out of there around 3:30 and it's a beautiful day out and so we thought we might grab a quick drink. THIS IS WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG.

First thought: B Restaurant, in Yerba Buena Center. I knew it had outdoor tables and you gotta sit outdoors on the 3 days a year it's warm enough in San Francisco to sit outdoors. No dice. They weren't open until 4:30.

New plan: We will return to the Mission and get some beers at Rosamunde and sit on their front porch. BZZZT it's totally full when we get there because no one in the Mission has a job so a bunch of deadbeats and losers had already filled up the whole porch. Dorks.

Next plan: But wait! The Liberties has like 10 or 15 outdoor tables! Perfect! Quick walk there. Maybe 3 or 4 of the outdoor tables are taken. Plenty of room! Finally! We will realize our dream! So we walk in and there's one guy at the bar and the bartender and that's it. We're getting ready to order and she says, "Are you guys planning to take these outside?" And we're all "Yeah," thinking we have to order from a waitress outside or something.

"You have to order food to sit outside," she says.

Wait what. "Do we have to order, like, a LOT of food?" Jessica asks, not unreasonably.

"You have to order one item per drink." So we were all "You have got to be kidding" and left.

Now, seriously, The Liberties, are you fucking kidding me? You just lost the business of three heavy drinkers in an empty bar with at least 10 empty tables outside. Is that a good business plan? I get that you want to capitalize on your outdoor seating when it's nice out, but seriously, why fucking turn away business when the tables will just sit empty? I mean, who does that?

Also, I've sat at those outside tables plenty of times before without ordering food. So that whole thing was fucked.

(As you may have gathered, I'm off work this week so I've been taking the dog to the beach and all over town so much that he basically thinks we're going steady now and I'm also doing things like going to the museum on a Tuesday. Yes, I am taking a few days off but not leaving town but DO NOT say that word, the one you're thinking, that starts with an "S" and ends with "aycation." Do not say that word.)

Somebody doesn't like Cliff

2 blog posts in one day! I'm turning into Mission Mission over here.

Anyways, whilst out walking the dog yesterday, I came across this curious artifact on the sidewalk:

(Last name redacted in case Cliff isn't really a drunk driver or violent felon.)

WTF? It's one of those peel-off stickers that someone hasn't peeled off yet. Is this the Worst Nametag Ever or was someone planning on an Anti-Cliff campaign in my hood?

We walked another block and THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE, also not peeled. I picked 'em up, for sure. They'll be a hoot at parties.

The Wife found another one this morning when she was walking the dog. What the fuck is going on?

Exercise with TK

Exercise has never really been my bag. I mean, for most of my life I had this crazy metabolism where I could eat anything I wanted and still look like a P.O.W. but I usually didn't eat that much anyway unless a lime in a Jack and Coke counts as food. Then you get to a certain age and shit starts to go south. You know what I'm talking about. I'm not like morbidly obese but I'm 6'4" and hovering around 200 freaks me out. I used to rock a solid 185 pretty much all the time so you know what I'm saying.

Also, exercise is supposedly good for you and whatever. If walking to a bar counts as exercise then I used to be all set.

SO ANYWAY I've been trying out some exercise. A few years ago when I lived in North Beach I used to take these long epic walks to like the Presidio and back but that wasn't just for exercise but also because I lived above these two kids whose Mom used to take off and leave them alone and they'd blast Metallica at like 9 on a Monday night and I just had to get out of thew house. Then I joined a gym but I didn't really like it because I'm not really a gym person and everyone else there was super fucking annoying (I'm talking to you, Bluetooth Guy Who Drank Coffee While Working Out Like What the Fuck). I used to run cross country back in high school and tried doing that again but it was fucking murder on my knees so I had to abandon that.

So you guys I know this is boring but I think I finally found my thing. It's doing these workout that things they have on Comcast On Demand with Chris Freytag.



This bitch has this whole set of like 20-minute long workouts on On Demand and she is KICKING MY FUCKING ASS. Swear to God, you may think TV workouts are for bored housewives and mental deficients, but by the time one of these gems is over I'm squirting sweat from every pore and breathing like a fat kid at Field Day. Bitch has no mercy.

So yeah, I know I'm totally doing Lady Exercise but WHATEVER. Haters gonna hate. At least I'm fucking doing SOMETHING every day. Plus, check out Mandy! She looking good! Maybe I can lose 113 pounds too.

The Bachelorette: What Happens in Vegas is Boring

I gotta say, 2 episodes in, I'm not so crazy about this season and hate Ashley's stupid face and the Mask Guy and everybody but now I'm committed so I will let the hate fuel my work this season and feed on it like a lion on a wildebeest or whatever.

OK we start out with a broclave where Chris Harrison explains how group dates work to a clearly befuddled crowd of idiots and losers. Now we're off to Vegas to get some commercial tie-ins done. Ashley and William in one jet, and a bunch of bros following behind in a Baby Mama Jet. There are some interviews and Mask Guy who is still wearing a mask says "I've taken the stealth approach, and I feel like a lotta guys are riding around in cabs." Because, what, cabs are loud and garish? You can't sneak around in a cab? Mask Guy is Functionally Retarded? All 3?

Standard Vegas Establishing Shots follow. Then we have some kind of Bizarro Fake Wedding setup with William and Chipmunk ring shopping and cake tasting and then actually starting a ceremony at the Bellagio Wedding Chapel and, sadly, they don't go through with it although Chipmunk says it's the "best first date I've ever been on!" which is the same exact thing she said to Brad on their first date last season and I get the feeling if I took her for Slurpees at a 7-11 in Coalinga and then we took a Greyhound to Fresno that would also be the "best first date she's ever been on!"

They have dinner in the middle of the fucking fountain pool thing at the Bellagio. Time for some Deep Talk about William's Dead Alcoholic Dad and YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE THIS Chipmunk has an Alcoholic Dad too but I can't tell if he's dead. Hmmmm, never would have guessed. Anyway, if you two end up together, DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN because it's pretty much a lock they'll be big boozers. Then the fountains go off and whatever.

Next we have a group date where the douchecabal visits the decidedly lower-rent Monte Carlo where they will have some kind of dance competition with something called JabbaWockeeZ, who are apparently some kind of dance group. They are divided into 2 groups and have to pick names and whatever, I kind of zoned out at this point. OBSERVATION: A lot of guys in "dance crews" are Asian, am I right? There's some kind of performance and some guys and something else happens.

Oh, then there's some post-show hangouts and West, who almost definitely did not kill his wife, tells his Dead Wife Story. "You don't know when the people you love will be taken away," he says. OR DO YOU? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN. Bentley likes Chipmunk's body and wants to do maybe something dirty. He says "She has a great body, amazing butt, rocking legs," and then he says, WE THINK, "and having her tickle my" and then they bleeped it out and he might have said "intellect" but also maybe not. He's a creep! That's why she loves him and begs him to stay on the show. Because chicks really do like assholes. It's true.

Back at the Douche Ranch, Ames is mad about Mask Guy and also Mask Guy is very contemplative and stares at the pool and wonders why the fuck he decided to look like an idiot on network television.

Now Chipmunk and "Mickey" are at Mandalay Bay and she thinks he looks "A MAY ZING" because he put a fucking blazer on over a t-shirt. Imagine if he put on a tux! She'd pass out from excitement. Mickey has a Dead Mom and the stench of death hangs heavy over our contestants. Now Chipmunk may be dying too, as she reports that she has "atunophon," which is a horrible, crippling malady OH WAIT she had a "ton of fun." Never mind. Then they have a private concert by Colbie Caillat and Mickey looks REAL EXCITED which makes me wonder a little about Mickey.

Let's move along. We're all back in LA now and getting ready for the Rose Ceremony and finally Ash has a sitdown with Mask Guy who, in short order, reveals that he had a brain hemorrhage, is 35, and has been divorced. Jesus, you should drop this human wreckage like a sack of dirt.

[At this point in my notes, I wrote down that The Wife said to me "I thought we covered this. Do not draw on the dog." SORRY.]

Instead, Mask Guy gets to stay! Who left? Hairdresser, Eyebrows, and the Guy Who Called His Mom. Who calls his Mom again and it is SO FUCKING CREEPY but at least he's not on this trainwreck anymore. Dating your Mom is better than being on the Bachelorette. There I said it.

The Bacherlorette: Don't Be That Guy. Or any of these guys, for that matter.

What if the Apocalypse really did happen and we just didn’t realize it at the time? How could we tell? One way, perhaps, is that we’re watching an Overly Excitable Dentist with the attention span of a fox sparrow look for true love on network TV. That’s right, friends, our new Bachelorette is Ashley Chipmunk.

Following the usual montage of her Failure Parade last season (not that it worked out any better for Brad, who, we can only pray, will NOT be back for a third go), we see Ashley in her current milieu of Philadelphia, doing interpretative dance in an empty theater and, God help us, dental surgery on some unsuspecting guy who can only afford to get dental work done at the dental school and I hope no one drops a pen while she’s in his mouth or he’s going to have a hole where a tooth used to be. Dissolve to LA where Ash runs around in a series of midriff-baring tops and uses the word “journey” for the first time.

Chris Harrison shows up and it’s time to get a preview of some of our potential mates in their native environments. Here we have “Ames,” who grew up in NYC and works in finance and “went to Yale, which is in Connecticut,” thanks for that detail Ames, and then got 2 Masters degrees and went to Harvard just for fun and then cured cancer and flew to the Sun in a spaceship he built in the garage but despite all this can’t seem to locate a suit that fits him. Ben F. is a winemaker from Sonoma (and San Diego, suspiciously) who has carefully tousled hair and knows what he wants in life: “a brunette.” AIM HIGH BEN F. “Bentley” lives in Salt Lake City and has a daughter named “Cozy,” not kidding, which seems like a cruel thing to do to a child, even if it’s Mormon. “West” has a Dead Wife and we are treated to the EXTREMELY GRAPHIC story of how he found her facedown in the bathtub! JESUS CHRIST THIS IS THE BACHELORETTE NOT CSI, spare me the seizure stories.

Back to our Chris Harrison sitdown w/ Ash. She has learned a lot from past mistakes and is concerned that some guys might not be here for the right reasons. RING THE “HERE FOR THE RIGHT REASONS” BELL. What’s this? She’s been pre-warned about Bentley? He’s on the show to promote his job? I hope his job isn’t naming people’s children or he’s a terrible failure. We will keep our eye on Bentley.

OK, let’s meet the douchebags. We gotta get 25 guys out of a limo and into the mansion and this is going to be painful. Tim, the “liquor distributor,” looks at her like he’s looking at a stripper and can’t think of anything to say. Stephen is a hairstylist from LA and through some herculean effort on my part I’m not making a gay joke here and he comments on her hair, natch, and goes inside. Anthony the New Jersey butcher is playing to type with his open collar and gold chain and Joey-from-Friends affect and we can smell the Paco Rabanne from here. And then there’s Jeff, who’s wearing a mask because he’s obviously on a Megan’s Law database somewhere. Then there are 15 other variations on the Date Rapist/Crispy Hair type. Whatevs

Now we have the traditional Cocktail Party, wherein 25 jackoffs try and get some Face Time with the Chipmunk to plead their case. Each one is more boring than the last until we get to one guy whose name escapes me but uses his time to CALL HIS MOM and put her on speaker and then Mom promptly tells them to use protection and this whole little psychodrama is so disturbing I don’t really want to think about it. Oh, I also liked Jon, who wants a “teammate in life” LOL what is this a motivational seminar? OH THE ROMANCE NEVER STOPS WITH JON.

Cut to Tim the Liquor Distributor. He has distributed all the available liquor into his gullet apparently because broseph is FUCKING HAMMERED. He tries to pick a fight with Mask Guy who begs off because “I’m a mature adult” and there you have it, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Mature Adult in this picture is the one wearing a Mardi Gras mask he got at Party City. Later we see Tim passed out by the pool, snoring into his mic and Tim is sent on his way and just a thought Tim, maybe working with liquor or any other alcoholic beverage is not the Best Choice for you. I do see a crossover potential with “Intervention,” though! BYE TIM.

Here’s an out of context sentence that Chipmunk said that I’m just going to park here and leave: “I always say that the man I’m gonna marry is gonna call me Cupcake.”

OK, who gets to stay? Mask Guy, incredibly. I mean, really. Ames gets a rose BECAUSE HE EARNED IT. And the hairdresser! Good. Evil Bentley gets the last rose and makes Cozy proud. This is gonna be fun. Oh, God help me, did I just say that?

FINAL COUNT:

“JOURNEY” – 5

“HERE FOR THE RIGHT REASONS” - 7