This Week in San Francisco in Verse

Look! It's Bevan Dufty riding Muni
With his daughter Sidney
If he can fix the fucking trains
I'll give him my left kidney



Steve Jobs passed on; I guess you'd say
His work benefitted us all
Another way to put it would be
AT&T dropped his call

The mayor's race is heating up
Ed Lee is getting attacked
I wouldn't worry about it though
He's pretty heavily Rose Pak'd

Occupy SF took to the streets
To stir up some civil strife
I doubt they're going to reform Wall Street
By yelling at my wife

The Blue Angels are here for their yearly flight
Some people think it's tacky
If the sound of fighters bothers you
Be glad you're not Iraqi

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.

Please meet these former Miss California contestants

For complicated and boring reasons, I recently had the occasion to come across the Miss California website which features all of last year's contestants and all I have to say is wow. I think my favorite thing about it is that it appears that the contestants have made a concerted effort to look like the area they're representing. You know how like on Miss Universe they're always wearing their colorful native garb? Same thing.

They're also from very very specific geographic areas! Like, this is Charlotte Giustiniani, from "North Brentwood." Not Brentwood, mind you, but NORTH Brentwood:

WHOA, BRITTANY HIGH FROM LARCHMONT VILLAGE,I just got arrested for looking at your picture. Did someone offer you candy or something to come down to their basement for your photo shoot?



I gotta be careful because you know these chicks are all Googling themselves 24/7 and I don't want them to find my blog and then go "Oh, what a fucking asshole," even though I'm totally used to that.

Just a couple more, though, cause this is totally fun.

Erika Robertson is from "Honey Bee Haven," which sounds like a syndicated children's TV show. She's got a real Black Swan thing going on:



OK, now you guess one. Where's Holly Doll from, you think?



Got your guess? Ready? She's Miss East Sacramento! I know, right?

I got one more, and she's my fave. Please meet Jael Lloyd, Miss Glendale:



The headband! The peace sign tattoo! We will get high and listen to Ariel Pink on vinyl and drink homemade sangria and just have a blast. Miss Glendale doesn't care. She's down for anything.

Have a nice weekend.

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.

What the hell is the deal with Rolling Stone magazine? It's for old people, right?

There's this "music" magazine called Rolling Stone. I think it was popular with kids in the 1960's. I picked one up in the airport because I only had 2 magazines on me and a long plane flight and neither Muscle & Fitness nor Penthouse Letters looked good. I also bought a $5 water.

Let's take a look at this very odd publication. This issue is called "Special Issue: Best of Rock 2011."
Adele's on the cover. She's the "Best Soul Superstar" in the "Best of Rock" edition. I guess that's cool. Adele is one of those people that everyone likes, right? Not me, especially, but everyone else in the world, apparently.

"Best Anniversary" is Pearl Jam, because it's the 20th anniversary of "Ten." I think the last time I listened to a Pearl Jam song was in 1994. But hey, an anniversary's an anniversary.

The weird thing about Rolling Stone is that it's full of rock acts that no one under 45 has thought about in 20 years. Check this out:

Page 26: "Buffalo Springfield Book First Tour Since 1968." That pretty much says it all. I don't even need to make a joke about that.

NEXT PAGE! Page 28: "Seger Turns the Page With Spring Tour." That's Bob Seger. Not counting truck commercials, he was last heard from around 1985. But if you judge music by Rolling Stone magazine, he is an incredibly Viable and Important Figure in Music.

Page 36: The "Q&A" column is with Ray Davies, who co-founded The Kinks in 1937. He appears to be about 158 years old and wants his brother to know they can still tour if they patch things up. They've been fighting about whether talkies are good for the film industry.

Page 62: In our "Best Of" package, Stevie Nicks is recognized as the "Best Hippie-Queen Earth Mother," apparently just to feature a picture of Stevie Nicks. They left off "Who Once Had People Blow Cocaine Up Her Rectum Because Her Septum Was Too Destroyed to Snort Anymore." That would get more readers I bet!

Page 66: "Best Reunion." Who do you think? Pavement, right? Guided by Voices? Gotta be Soundgarden, right? Nope. It's Rod Stewart & Jeff Beck. If this tour isn't sponsored by Polident, something has gone terribly wrong.

Page 71: One ONE PAGE, both Buddy Miller ("Best Sideman") and Jackson Browne ("Best New Roots") are featured. If you don't know who those people are, don't worry.

Now, in all fairness, the issue also has pieces on Panda Bear, the Fleet Foxes, and Odd Future, but I guess what cracked me up was that it exists in some kind of fantasy world where Bob Seger is relevant in some way.

30 Reasons to Hate San Francisco

30. It's cold and windy almost all the time. While the rest of the country enjoys a pleasant summer day, it's Ice Station Zebra up in this bitch.

29. There's nowhere to park.

28. Too crowded. Why is everyone always where I want to go? Don't you people have anywhere else to go?

27. Hippies.

26. Homeless. Esp. the person who took a shit on my front steps earlier this week.

25. Everything is too fucking expensive. $1250 for that studio in the Tenderloin? That's like a 3-bedroom house anywhere else. BONUS: No whores.

24. Too many weirdos.

23. Too loud.

22. Earthquakes. How about a completely random event that can destroy your house and everything you own and kill you and your family? Great, where do I sign????

21. There's no Target. I know, I know, there's going to be one over on Masonic, if it EVER gets built, which brings up:

20. NIMBYs. Including people who never want to change anything or see anything new.

19. Hipsters.

18. Bros.

17. Marina chicks.

16. Gavin Newsom.

15. Pretentious, heavily-tattooed waiters who think you're scum because you're not working on a screenplay or art installation. Why don't you install that flatiron steak right the fuck over here, asshole.

14. Muni. These people shouldn't be operating the Little Puffer Miniature Steam Train at the zoo, much less the transit system of a major metropolitan area.

13. People who say "I'm a fourth-generation San Franciscan." I'm a fifth-generation Who Gives a Fuck.

12. 4 Non-Blondes.

11. The Incredibly Useless Board of Supervisors. If we've gotten around to banning Happy Meals, I guess all the other problems have been cleared up. Right? Right?

10. Tourists.

9. Bike snobs. People who say "I choose not to own a car."

8. Terrible drivers.

7. Too many hills.

6. Chris Daly.

5. Chevy's.

4. Drunks. People yelling outside your window at 2:30 a.m. after the bars close. STFU.

3. Foodies. Why have a pizza when you can have an Artisanal Crispy Flatbread with Burrata from Cows Massaged Thrice Daily and Locally-Produced Dry-Cured Prosciutto Seasoned with Herbs from the Chef's Special Garden for $23?

2. Rainbow Grocery. People who shop at Rainbow Grocery.

1. People who bitch about everything.

Shit, I forgot Burning Man.

Travel Tips for Visiting Rangers Fans!

Welcome, Texas people! We are happy to have you in our Fair City. Please allow me to give you a few tips that will enhance your stay here:

1. Remember - gay people always want to have sex with you and will pursue you relentlessly. Also, they are everywhere. 9 out of 10 men in San Francisco are gay. How can you spot a gay person? They are wearing ascots and carrying small dogs in Vuitton carriers. They also lisp and faint if startled. BE CAREFUL.

2. We're all stoned out on The Pot 24/7. That's because we're all hippies, just like you read about! Groovy, man. If someone offers you The Pot, you can just say "I don't have glaucoma" and they'll leave you alone.

3. Everything is very expensive! That's because we don't have any oil wells here in the city limits.

4. Enjoy our colorful hobos! It's fun to dangle a dollar bill in midair and ask them to do a trick. This is normal and they expect you to do that.

5. For an authentic San Francisco Experience, make sure to visit Fisherman's Wharf! That's where real San Franciscans go for fun and for great, freshly-caught seafood.

6. Did you rent a car? Good move! You'll find plenty of convenient free parking all over the city. Just look for curbs painted blue and marked with a guy in a chair. This is Tourist Parking, and the guy in the chair is a lazy tourist who just wants to sit down. Like you!

7. The Transamerica Pyramid is where the Illuminati meet. When the light on top is flashing, they're having a meeting and Socialism is Coming Soon! Watch Glenn Beck for more details.

Illuminati meeting in progress. Expect your guns and/or Bible to be taken away soon. (Thx Wiggum03 for the pic.)

8. Those guys on the corner of Golden Gate and Hyde sell delicious rock candy, the Real San Francisco Treat! It's $20 for two rocks, but boy is it worth it. Just chew and enjoy! Your mouth might get a little numb, but that's totally normal!

9. Going to the game? Make sure and ask for your free chardonnay and cheese sampler!

Mad Men #12: Why I'm Quitting Tobacco. Not personally, I mean.

Man, this whole operation is going down the tubes. Don's trying to scare up some Bean Business with Mr. Heinz, but they won't commit because SCDP might not be around in 6 mos.! That's some bullshit! But he's right about one thing. Pickles are funny.

The business consultant guy or whoever he is who looks like Dr. Bunsen Honeydew says SCDP should stick with what they know: delicious cigarettes. There's gonna be a new brand of Chick Smokes. Are we seeing the birth of Virginia Slims? Awesome.

HEY SWEET CREEPER GLEN IS BACK. He's chatting up Sally while wearing an Arizona Cardinals uniform. They talk a lot about Bets. WONDER WHY. But hey, any excuse to get Creeper Glen back in the mix. Later we see Sally playing Go Fish with Dr. Edna. My shrink never played Go Fish with me! Fuck, for $125 an hour I should have gotten fucking Baccarat. Then later Bets catches Sally hanging out with Glen and Glen bolts even though they're not doing anything. YET, anyway.

Don runs into Midge from the Village. Remember her? She was that boho chick he was banging in season 1 or 2 or thereabouts and smoking The Pot and reading Frank O'Hara and all that jazz. LITERALLY. Anyway, she's looking pretty good but she's on the smack. Let's go over to Midge's for some whiskey and chicken cordon bleu with her creepy-ass husband. She's running some kind of art for sex scheme. DD throws her some money and takes Number 4. Oh, Midge. You've really let yourself go. You know what else is like drinking 100 bottles of whiskey while someone licks your tits? Pride in a job well done! Not really.

Dr. Honeydew comes around again and tells everyone at SCDP there's no cig company business after all. FAIL. Shit is going downhill. Everyone freaks out. Peggy wants to change SCDP's name. They should change it to "BBDO"! Those guys seem to be doing well. They could probably get a ton of business just by accident. Oh wait, even better, how about just "Puppies"? Everyone loves puppies!

Back at Don's pad, he stares at Number 4 for a LONG TIME and then oh shit he's gonna write in the journal and here comes that awful voiceover oh wait no, it's cool, he's writing "Why I'm Quitting Tobacco" and publishing it in the New York Times and basically being a fucking GAME CHANGER and being DISRUPTIVE and all kinds of dot com startup bullshit. Um, the other partners don't like it so much. Bert hates it so much that he's taking his shoes and leaving. That's sad! I'll miss Weird Old Bert. Then that fucking Ted Chaughough calls up and pretends to be Mayor Quimby Robert Kennedy and HA HA HA I hope you get killed by a hippie who writes "KILL THE PIGS" in blood on your wall.

Hey, where did Don get all that damn money? He's walking around with $125 in cash, which is like $7,500 in today's money and he's paying Pete's partnership stake and basically he's just got gobs of fucking cash.

Next week's the season finale. I'm rooting for a "Who shot Ted Chaoughough?" cliffhanger.

Today's Top 5: Fast Food Restaurants in San Francisco

Come on, Mr. and Ms. Sustainably Raised Arugula and Organically Butchered Heirloom Pig. You know that you have Secret and Dark Cravings just like the rest of us, and when that happens, you clandestinely sneak down to the McDonald's that's 2 neighborhoods over so no one sees you and you order the #3 and eat it there in the restaurant while reading the USA Today someone left behind and hoping no one sees you. I'm on to you. And you know what? THAT'S COOL. No one can live on Day Boat Sea Scallops or heirloom tomato consommé all the time. Sometimes you need a Double Double, stat. I won't tell if you don't.

5. Arby's, Lakeshore Plaza, 1581 Sloat

There is something about the way the spray cheese melts over the Beef 'n Cheddar that is just magical, a perfect balance of flavor and texture, cushioned in a pillowy onion roll. Plus, you have to love the fact that Lakeshore Plaza is one big Chain-a-thon, a rare sight indeed in San Francisco. They've got a Petco, a UPS Store, a Supercuts, a Big 5, a Radio Shack. It's like being somewhere else in the country! There's even a military recruitment center! What is this place! Anyway, Arby's is the bomb.

4. KFC/Taco Bell, Guerrero and Duboce

You guys, when I found out you could mix and match the KFC and Taco Bell items it felt like I had learned something really important. Like you can get a 1-piece breast meal AND a Taco Supreme. Plus, proximity to Zeitgeist! I mean, come on! I just wish SF had a Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (WARNING: Do not click on link if you plan on having something else in your head for the rest of the day).

3. Jack in the Box, Geary and 10th

You know what's great about Jack? He never sticks. He's always coming up with some new shizz. Like, you may go "I love the Sourdough Jack, but what else you got?" and Jack's all "WHY DON'T YOU TRY A CHICKEN FAJITA PITA MOTHERFUCKER" and you're all "Holy shit, that is a good fucking idea." Not that you would ever do that, though, because the Sourdough Jack is fucking nuts. I've never been to the Union Square location but the one on Geary and 10th is righteous every once in a while. You can sit up front and watch all the dorks going in and out of Lamps Plus.

2. In-N-Out Burger, Fisherman's Wharf

I knew if I didn't put In-N-Out on here peeps would FREAK OUT and be all "WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU PUT IN-N-OUT ON THERE" so calm down, here it is. I don't know, In-N-Out's OK, but not worth the mad hype it gets all the time. Plus, the last time I ate there (in Daly City, not at the Fish-Whar), the fries were totally underdone. Nevertheless, if you want a solid burger surrounded by smelly Germans and thugged-out kids from Modesto, this is your place.

1. McDonald's, Haight and Stanyan

Let's start out with 2 assumptions: (1) McDonald's is rock solid, and generally you can't go wrong there, and (2) the food at every McDonald's is about the same. So it really comes down to location. The McDonald's at Haight and Stanyan is awesome because it's close to Amoeba and it plays host to a constant revolving parade of serious freakshow humanity. You got your hippies, your crazies, your gutter punks, your retirees, your normals, your truck drivers, your speed freaks, your stoners who have to go to McDonald's because they're stoned, your tourists, and you. It's kind of the iconic San Francisco fast food restaurant. That's why it's Number 1.

RIP Wendy, who decamped from her last SF location on Market a few years ago. We miss you, Wendy.

Also, SF needs a Krystal, a Chick-Fil-A, and Bojangles. That would rule.

That thing everybody thinks about this weekend isn't true

Mad Men #5: Riding the Honda

This episode was all about masturbation and Peggy riding a Honda motorcycle in a circle, although not at the same time.

So here’s what I want to know: Which sitcom is missing a sassy, wisecracking old secretary? Because Miss Blankenship seems like she just wandered in from the set of “Rhoda" or something. Sure, she’s a hoot, but it’s weird. Anyway, tonight our main plot is about getting the Honda account. Pete likes it. Roger doesn’t like it because he was in WW II and is still mad. Bert likes it because he’s already a big fan of tentacle porn and sake bombs. Hey, I’ve got an idea about how to make this work for everybody! Get the account and then do an ad with a kamikaze motorcyclist! Win-win!

Don’s got the kids but he’s going out with Bethany so he gets Neighbor Nurse to do some babysitting. She doesn’t do a very good job and Sally gives herself what is actually a pretty fashion-forward, choppy kind of cut with a lot of layers. Sally is now eligible to become the lead singer in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover band. Unfortunately the Yeah Yeah Yeahs won’t be invented for another 40 years. Anyway, I guess cutting your own hair is the 1965 version of cutting. Sally’s a hot mess. I can’t wait for her to grow up and start smoking hella weed and banging every longhair with a guitar in sight. Don doesn’t share my artistic vision and is pissed about Sally’s new do. Whatever, Don, chillax. Just because Ted Chaoughaugh shit all over you at Benihana doesn’t mean that Sally’s not cool as shit.

January Jones is back in my life and all is well! Oh, she drunk again. That January Jones. Sally comes home and she slaps the kid! Jesus! If she did that to Don, they’d still be together. You’re slapping the wrong Draper, Betts!

Back at the office, the Japanese arrive and there’s some hijinx with the translations. Man, I love a good translation subtitle joke. That shit never fails. Pete’s handing out cantaloupes and Johnnie Walker when Roger comes in and blows up the whole deal. Wow, what a shitbird Roger is. You gotta let it go, man!

David McCallum from Man from U.N.C.L.E.: Hot or Not? Sally votes “hot.” Eww, gross, there is not going to be any way to get through this without it being super uncomfortable. OK, Sally gets busted…we’re going to need a euphemism here. Riding the Honda? Sally gets busted Riding the Honda. Other Mom rushes Sally home and rats her out to Betts. Time for more beatings! And finger removal surgery! Oh, Cryptkeeper has a little more perspective since he’s seen this kind of thing before over the last 150 years. He is a Calming Voice of Reason and we will send Sally to first of many, many mental health professionals she will be seeing during her life.

Next, we have a mini-Caper Movie within the show. Don has a Plan: they’re going to make Chaoughaugh think they’re working on something when they’re not! That’s what I do every single day at work! I would perfect for this! False leads are planted and there are meetings with directors and blahdeddy blah it all works because Don just Gets Shit Done.

Here comes Faye. She finally fucking says what everyone has been thinking for 3 years: “I don’t know how people drink the way you do around here.” She says this as she’s tossing back a little Lunchtime Sake with Don. Humorously, my Mom said the exact same thing last time she came to visit! Anyway, I have just about had it with Faye and Don not fucking. For Christ’s sakes, people, let’s get our shit together.

We will now wrap this up. Betty tells the therapist that she wishes Cryptkeeper had met her Dad, I guess because they could have traded Revolutionary War stories. Roger’s office looks like Lime, but without the bottomless mimosas and house music. SDCP somehow ends up with the Honda account and I’m not sure how it all went down but I think Don gave them a check for $3000 and that did it. Still no mention of the Rolling Stones.

Mad Men #4: Let's cry it out

Brief nudity! Now we’re getting somewhere. It better be January Jones. So we begin on the set of a rollicking new comedy starring all the same people from Mad Men. Seriously, who wrote this episode, Neil Simon? What’s with the one-liners and the “Oh, there’s a fire by Radio City” and whatnot? I mean, it’s great, we’ll take it, but seriously.

Peggy’s getting ready to take a walk on the wild side. She takes an elevator ride with the girl from Life who’s showing off some Very Tasteful Nudes. That’s how they used to do porn. Today we get a midget peeing on a donkey but in 1965 they had to look at sideboob and imagine what the rest looks like. In other news, Peggy is going to be wearing mustard-colored clothes all episode, get used to it.

(Incidentally, one of the members of our extended Mad Men familia had an epiphany or moment of religious ecstasy or something because she pointed at the screen and yelled “HOLY SHIT THAT CHICK WAS IN KICKING AND SCREAMING” and I’m just going to hope she meant the funny, clever 1995 comedy with Chris Eigeman and Olivia d’Abo (who used to be super-hot and I don’t even know what she’s doing these days) and not the Will Ferrell thing from a couple of years ago because I may not be able to talk to her any more if she recognizes people from Will Ferrell movies. ANYWAY, no independent confirmation on the Kicking and Screaming thing so if you want a project today, match up the two cast lists on IMDB and go to town.)

That little shitbag Pete Campbell has to dump his father-in-law’s Clearasil account so they meet up in a bar and FIL tells him Trudy is pregnant. Great, just what the world needs, another Pete Campbell. In fact, Pete II would be about 45 years old today and I think it’s this super-annoying little fuck that works on the 4th floor. That’s what I think.

Joan calls a meeting of the Office Girls! Oh, wait, it’s a focus group led by Faye. Oh, wait, it’s fucking est or Landmark or something. There is a LOT of crying in Focus Group! Peggy is not having it because She Is a Strong Woman. “Your problem is not my problem,” Peggy says. There’s your fucking tagline, Ponds! In the ad, we will see a couple of peeps knocking on this lady’s door and they say they are collecting money for the orphans and she says “Your problem is not my problem” and then smears Ponds on her face and then it goes SCHHHONGGGG and a big bottle of Ponds smacks you in the face. Fuck, I should have gone into advertising.

Ken’s back and he doesn’t like McCann and he also doesn’t like Pete. Join the fucking club, Ken. Oh, now here we have the showdown between Don and his Sexretary. She wants a recommendation letter and he says to write one up and he’ll sign it and she doesn’t like that. Now what the fuck is wrong with that? That sounds like a great fucking deal to me. “This is a fucking stone killer secretary. In between taking dictation and writing up some motherfucking Gregg shorthand, she will also run your office like the control room of a submarine and can basically print money out of her hair. If you don’t hire her, you might as well shoot yourself in the fucking face. Love Don.”

The Power Lesbian is back and now she’s sharking on a secretary! Whoa, Power Lesbian, one at a time! She invites Peggy to some art thing/excuse for smoking the reefer and this party looks like a scene from every bad 60’s movie. Seriously, all they need is a guy with a goatee and a beret hitting his little drum and saying “Cool, man, real cool.” Power Lesbian, who looks like Sarah Silverman, makes some crack about renting your vagina and it’s one of those things you think is funny but it’s really not. Then the cops bust their party and Peggy hides out with some Pot Bro and I don’t remember what else happened.

To wrap up:

- Don gets a new secretary and if they think just because she looks like Dame Edna Don won’t bang her, they’d be surprised.
- Peggy congratulates Pete on his new baby and oh, by the way, remember when I had your baby? Who else are you going to get to have your baby? Huh? Every fucking woman in this office? How many goddam babies do you need?
- I am getting pretty fucking sick of Don and Faye talking instead of having sex.
- Did you get pears? I don't know, I'm 120 fucking years old and I'm in a hallway with Don Draper and fuck it, I can't even remember.

Mad Men #3: Mysterious Origins of the Bro-Date Revealed!

Let me preface this by saying that this week’s recap is brought to you under Conditions of Extreme Hardship (or maybe that should be Condiciones de Extrema Dureza), because I conformed to the worst stereotypes and contracted some kind of horrible affliction in Mexico that continued to trouble me through last night, when I finally had the opportunity to watch this week’s episode. Nevertheless, I soldiered on, putting aside my own well-being so that you might get this recap. Like you care or anything.)

Poor Joan. All she wants to do is have a normal life with a normal guy and a normal baby and everything else a 1964 woman might want and instead she gets stuck with a history of non-medically-approved abortions and a chain-smoking gyno and a husband whose finest moment was getting hit over the back of the head with a vase. And mean old Lane Pryce won’t even give her a couple of days off in January! Karma’s going to come get you, you bloody twat!

Now we are interrupted by a scene from “The Spy Who Loved Me.” Oh no, wait, that’s Don driving down the coast in his convertible. It’s so jarring when the show leaves Manhattan. Brooklyn’s like a strange and distant land to these people. OK, we’re going back to see the Real Don Draper’s Wife. She now comes equipped with a Hottie Niece who goes to Cal and has grass. That’s ridiculous! Blonde chicks never buy their own drugs! Real Don Draper’s Wife, DD, and Hottie Steph go to some bar. In the background, people are dancing like it’s Arnold’s from “Happy Days.” Steph’s a pistol! Sure, she’s all college-lefty now but you fast forward to today and you know she’s living in a retrirement community in Arizona and bitching about illegal immigrants. Later, natch, DD puts the moves on when he gives her a ride home. He was right, she did get picked up by some creep! She uses the old Your-Fake-Identity’s-Wife-Has-Cancer-And-We-Haven’t-Told-Her-Yet dodge. Boy, if I had a nickel. Hey, Don, maybe not the best time to light up a smoke!

Following the dawn light wash across the set like my high school production of Death of a Salesman, we see that DD has chosen to paint the interior of RDDW’s house aquamarine whilst wearing boxers and blowing mad clouds with her. Too bad Dark Side of the Moon hasn’t been invented yet! That might confuse and frighten them, since the most complicated musical thing they’ve ever heard is “White Christmas.” Anyway, Sis comes around and DD gets all up in her grill and says she’s gotta tell RDDW about the cancer or he will and Sis is all “The fuck I will, the fuck business is it of yours motherfucker” and DD says “I make it my business bitch” and Sis says something else I forget and DD chickens out anyway.

Back to NYC, WHEW. I don’t like the California scenes. Joan is GOING OFF on Lane. Here comes the karma! There’s been a flower mixup and Lane’s wife has gotten the card that says “Joan, you are the finely chopped dates in my sticky toffee pudding” or something like that. Anyway, so much for Lane’s marriage! Just as well, she was a bitch.

All this shit was just prelude, though, to what might be the greatest sequence of scenes in Mad Men history: Don and Lane’s Most Excellent Bro-Date!!!!! The Boyzzzz get started by splitting a fine-ass bottle o’ whiskey, then head out to catch Godzilla, taking along the rest of the bottle in a Mega-Flask. I was heartened to see that, even in 1964, guys observed the one-chair-between-them bro-distance. They’re all shitfaced and talking shit in the theater like they at the Metreon or something. If Don had a laser pointer it’d be perfect. Anyway, then on to some dinner where Lane does this:



TIME FOR SOME HOOKERS. First, let’s stop and see some standup comedy! “Hey, you ever notice how rigid and confining our gender roles are? What’s up with that?” No, instead he makes gay jokes at DD and Lane! Boy are you way off, Mr. Proto-Comedian! See, here come the hookers now! Anyway, they all head back to DD’s bachelor pad and all I can say is I hope Hooker #2 isn’t a slapper too or Lane’s in for a big surprise. And only $25? That's a bargain, even by 1964 standards. OK, that's enough.

Stream of consciousness during last night's Mumford and Sons show at Slim's

Man, maybe I'm getting too old for this shit. Why is Slim's always so fucking crowded? There's gotta be like 800 people in here. Oh, look, there's Aaron Axelsen. I've been seeing him at shows since like 1993. He has the exact same haircut he did then. Man, it is crowded in here. At least Miller bottles are four bucks.

Oh, here goes the opening act. They have a lot of people in this band! Who's that guy who looks like Charles Manson and is shaking a tree branch with finger cymbals tied to it? That must be some Australian thing. They sound like Animal Collective with all the juice sucked out. I bet the recordings sound better than the live show. "This guy in front of me is dancing like he's at Bible camp," The Wife says.

OK, they're done. NOW EVERYBODY RUSH THE BAR. Fuck, it is way too crowded in here. Why is this set break so long?

Looks like we're getting ready to start. Wow, the sound is really great! I wish the sound was this good at all the shows I go to. Good idea, playing one of the better-known songs near the beginning. Is it just me, or does the lead singer guy kinda look like Ricky Gervais? Maybe just from back here. Wow, people are really into it! They're singing along and everything! Pot smoke.
This is good! That's a lot of sound for four guys who don't even have a drummer. Oh, here comes the obligatory get-everybody-from-the-opening-act-back-on-stage part. There's the Manson stick shaker! I wonder if he gets extra-hassled at airport security. Now they're gone.

They're going longer than I expected. I guess I'll get another beer. This guy in the bathroom is telling this other guy that he's following Mumford and Sons on tour, that he was in Portland last night and is going to L.A. tomorrow. Wow, I wouldn't do that if it was my own band. That's some serious dedication.

Big finish! OK, encore. Very nice. Wow, it's almost midnight. Glad The Wife drove to the show.

Someone has to walk the dog when we get home.

[UPDATE: yuppie rag 7x7 was there last night too. Maybe that explains why the audience was whiter than a Tea Party rally.]

The dog totally knows

Check out Sophie with the advance warning on the Humboldt earthquake last week:



[Video via the Eureka Times-Standard.]

She's all "FUCK, I AM OUTTA HERE." I guess that shit about dogs being able to predict earthquakes is true.

Speaking of EQs, there's been a lot of Unwanted Seismic Activity in the past coupla weeks. We're off to Target on Saturday to replenish our earthquake kits. And BevMo, too. I drank the vodka out of our kit like a year ago.

Obama wants cavemen to stare menacingly at you

As regular readers know, I'm a big fan of weird and even weirder advertising, but this one takes the cake.



WTF TIMES A MILLION. Obama asks Moms to return to school to what, become male loggers or serial killers? To study Cro-Magnon man? To join a freak-folk band? WHAT THE FUCK COULD THIS ILLUSTRATION POSSIBLY MEAN?

I hope I'm wrong about this, but it makes me think that Internet display ads are constructed entirely by computers. They select an image at random from their memory, assign it randomly to some text, and place it on various websites.

[Also, and this feels entirely like piling on, the fact that Pell grants are available for returning students does not, in fact, mean that Obama has asked Moms to return to school, any more than the fact that the U.S. Army owns helicopters means that Obama has asked teenagers to take rotary-wing flying lessons.]

A picture an hour: Saturday, October 2, 2009

I thought I had the timestamping on. It wasn't on. You'll have to trust me that these are about one an hour. First one is around 8:50 a.m., I think.

That's Will Sheff, of Okkervil River, one of the two bands we saw at this year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass free concert in Golden Gate Park. It was an absolutely beautiful day, sunny and in the high 60's, and we found a nice spot on the hill with a pretty much unobstructed view of the stage. For a huge outdoor festival with about 80 acts, they did it right.

That's Rhett Miller of The Old 97's, who were on the same stage right after Okkervil River. I thought their set was kind of bland, but hey, no one hits a home run every time.

That's a PBR and a Jameson's rocks, at The Page. At this point it's, what, 9:30 or so. What I should have done is gone home. What I did do was go to Debaser. I went mostly just to say hi to Chris. We talked about some stuff for a while but I don't have a lot of details on that. Then I went home.

Media I am absorbing right now

TV: Lost

Now entering the 5th season, this sci-fi/time travel/soap opera/mindfuck/excuse for Josh Holloway to walk around without a shirt on continues to confuse and entertain, along with annoying Super Hot Irish Girlfriend because every few minutes I ask her "Now what just happened? Who's that?" Plus, Evangeline Lilly!

Music: The Streets, Original Pirate Material

Just came back to this 2002 release and it still sounds great. Mike Skinner's genius idea was to rap about everyday life for a regular bloke in Britain. Forget Benzes and Cavalli furs; he's talking about getting fucked up on lager and getting into fights and not calling girls back too soon so you don't look desperate.

Important note for American listeners: "Geezers" means "guys" in British, not "old people." This album may be very confusing if you don't know that.

Book: Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, by Sen. Jim Webb

Forget the English Cavalier artistocracy and the prim New England Puritans. The Scots-Irish were the mongrel pioneers who settled much of Appalachia and are the ancestors of most of what we consider the White Middle Class today. Jim Webb, a senator from Virginia, has a bit of an overblown style, but the history is fasciniating, especially if you're one of them, like I am.

Movie: 28 Days Later

Just saw this a couple of nights ago. Nice, creepy little quasi-zombie movie, except the zombies are really really fast and not exactly the undead. Oddly, screenplay by Alex Garland, who also wrote the hippie backpacker's ur-fable, The Beach.

Web: Evany's dispatches from Sundance

Typically hilarious.

Learn not to burn

Collected by Valleywag at 18th & Mission:

I have to admit, I LOL'd. A few years ago, there was a similar tag I saw in the Panhandle, with the Man logo and "Welcome Home" on the top and underneath, in much smaller type, "LAME-O."

Ahh, Burning Man, the annual ritual in the Nevada desert that divides us all into two groups: those who go to Burning Man and those who love to talk about how retarded it is. Can there be no detente?

True confession: I went, a few years ago. If you haven't been, it's pretty much exactly what you think. It's very dusty and there are a lot of people on drugs and people act weird and introduce themselves by "Woodchuck" or "Spacegirl" and there is very loud techno music all the time, 24 hours a day, everywhere.

But you know what? Once you get past the inherent goofiness and just resign yourself to it, it's not bad at all. There's some cool art to see, and people from all over the place, and everyone's into just hanging out, and there are none of the Mission vs. Marina social barriers we have to deal with back here because everyone's pretty much dressed the same, which is in neon fake fur and goggles, and it's not immediately apparent whether the person you're talking to would be someone you'd talk to back in the real world or not.

That being the case, once was enough, for me, anyway. I'm not into deprivation.

I realize I'm like 2 weeks late with this post, but the sidewalk graffiti just got me thinking about it.

SF Giants: Ruining birthdays since 1958

Yesterday was Super Hot Irish Girlfriend's 31st birthday. We did what every girl loves to do on her birthday! We went to a professional baseball game.

That would normally be fun, except the team we went to see was the Giants, and they put on their usual Festival of Suck and lost 11-4 to the Atlanta Braves.

Now, I should point out that going to the game wasn't some typical dumb boyfriend move. SHIG has become quite the baseball fan in the past few years. When I first met her, she didn't know the difference between a line drive and a box score, but she can now discuss Giants pitching intelligently and had a conversation with one of our friends last weekend about the relative merits of RBIs and on base percentage in evaluating a hitter.

Anyway, as we're sitting there watching the pathetic Giants get pwned by Mike Hampton, who's pretty much the definition of "washed up" and is so fragile he'd break like cheap glass if he ever bumped up against anything solid, just to add insult to injury, it started to rain. The average precipitation for San Francisco in August is 0.07 inches, so it really felt like piling on at that point. Bleh.

Oh, so on the train on the way home, who's right across from us but District 6 Supervisor/Gavin Newsom enemy Chris Daly? He was with his kid coming back from the game. Now, I'm pretty much a tax-and-spend, free-drugs-for-orphans, give-wealthy-estates-to-spotted-owls liberal, but Chris Daly makes me look like Barry Goldwater.

"I want to take your money and give it to the hobos!"

Whatever our political differences may be, I gotta give Chris Daly mad props for riding Muni like the rest of us fools. Sorry we were looking at you and whispering to each other, Chris Daly!

ANYWAY, Happy Birthday, SHIG!