I didn't mean it like that

The other morning, The Wife and I were having one of those occasional bickering things that all couples have from time to time (except for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes because their relationship is PERFECT IN EVERY WAY). And it was my impression (although this impression was not shared by The Wife) that she was being a little over-sensitive, if you will. That she was taking easy umbrage at everything I said, when I didn't mean to say anything mean or critical or whatever at all. So I said to her, sort of exasperated,

"You're just looking to get hurt today."

As you can plainly see, that sentence can be interpreted in two ways, one of them being what I meant, and one of them being I am going to beat you.

Since then, anytime I disagree with her, she faux-cowers and says, "Am I looking to get hurt again today?" HI-LARIOUS.

These Are the Things I Can Do Without #73, 41

#73: Justin Bieber

Since I'm not 12, Justin Bieber didn't explode into my consciousness like a white-hot supernova with a terrible haircut. No, instead he more or less seeped into my consciousness, like a slime mold with a terrible haircut. Now, I don't have a cold and dead heart and I can appreciate the sugary sweetness of a pop hit as much as the next person, but everything about this sawed-off little suburban nightmare makes my skin crawl.

Take a Xanax so you won't leap from your chair and smash your monitor and then we'll discuss:



Ugh. Ugh. It hurts so bad. Let's just start with the very disturbing fact that this little shit is apparently some type of teen sex idol and his fucking voice hasn't changed. I'm all for exploitation, but that is fucking creepy.

Then there's the faux-gangsta dialect he employs when his Good Friend Usher calls. Now, I imagine in real life and definitely in the world of this video, the only hardship JB has ever known is when he was late to soccer practice or Safeway was out of Honey Nut Cheerios, but you can tell he is DOWN because he says "Yo, Usher," and immediately affects a Fake Black Dialect and says "I can do dat."

I'm not even going to get into the song, an over-compressed, terribly-written, Autotuned-to-the-Gates-of-Hell piece of shit. I will point out that he addresses a young female suburbanite as "Shorty." I know I'm going to come off sounding like an Angry Oldster or a Dangerous Crank, but this really does suck.

#41: Fake Cheetos



I know you're eating macrobiotic and basically you have seaweed for lunch and you share a diet plan with a mature guinea pig and you would never eat swordfish because A it's overfished and B do you know how much mercury is in that? But when you lock the door and get ready to watch Every Mother's Worst Fear with Cheryl Ladd on Lifetime Movies Network, please at least have the dignity to buy ACTUAL CHEETOS, which are awesome and a gift from God, and not some fake Cheetos shit that I wouldn't even give my dog. Thank you.

I can't quit you, SFGate comments

Now, admittedly, SFGate's fun foto feature on Spring Break 2010 isn't exactly Woodward and Bernstein-level reportage, but it's a harmless enough little piece that doesn't hurt anyone and probably gets a ton of pageviews, since it features some skin. Ah, journalism in 2010. Anyway, whatever pays the bills.

Look, what fun!

College kids swarm sunny beaches and party like there's no tomorrow. Follow them vicariously.

Springbreakers on holiday: Vicky Perez, 19, from left, Lindsey Matute, 18, and Heather Smith, 19, play in the surf during spring break on South Beach, Miami Beach, Florida, March 18, 2010. Perez and Matute attend Miami-Dade College and Smith is a student at the University of Miami. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald/MCT)

SFGate Commenters, on the other hand, tend to take a rather dim view of any picture in which someone is depicted as having fun. It fails to comport with their bleak worldview. So what do they have to say?

Oh, that's sad. Frolic in the surf? YOU ARE DOOMED.

Christian troll is Christian.

Wait, you think this person is serious? How'd you like to have to recruit for a religion that considers bikinis "filth and debauchery"? Spend a weekend with me sometime, "sweatypie," and it'll put you in a mental institution.

I can't recall ever "making out with my girls friends for my hard-working fathers," but hey, whatever happened in ordinary_g's house is between him and Oprah.

New Bar Night: St. Mary's Pub

At first I was all, "Maybe I'll keep this one a secret so it doesn't get overrun" but then I was all "(A)," (yeah I actually said "A" in my head) "that's a douche move and (B) overrun by who? My tens of readers? I think I'll still be able to get a seat."

The usual Intrepid Crew assembled - on time, no fucking way! - last night at the 3300 Club on Mission. I've been there before so it doesn't count. It was the first time for other Intrepid Crewmembers and they were pretty much "whatever" but I like it because I'm almost always the youngest person in there and that's tough at my advanced age. Coupla drinks there and then we moved on to the selected destination.

[SIDE NOTE: Just in case you're wondering (and, wow, if you are, you are way more interested in this than anyone else), the NBN policy is to meet somewhere else familiar and then all hit the New Bar together as a unit, in case the New Bar is dangerous or too lame to be at alone. Check back with me if you want to know the other rules of NBN and I'll send you the brochure and DVD.]

Destination: St. Mary's Pub, 3845 Mission, at College Ave. There's a College Ave. in San Francisco? Who knew!? I guess this is in Bernal Heights, but it feels like a different city. We were like, "Hello, fine bartendress! We come from a strange and distant land called San Francisco! We do not know of your primitive ways! Please serve us a flagon of ale!"

Short version: We liked SMP a lot.

Longer version: Pretty standard no-pretense, no-scene bar. Giants and 49ers stuff on the walls. Internet jukebox. Extremely friendly and cute bartender named Meghan with an "h." Small crowd (like 4-5 people) of what appeared to be regulars. Like, regulars since the 70's. Separate back room with a pool table.

It's hard to say what's so appealing about this place. Certainly Meghan helped (thx for the shots, incidentally, M), but it's more that undefinable "Hmmm, I could hang out here" feeling. I mean, there's nothing really special or extraordinary about this place. It's just a nice, mellow bar. Sometimes you just want a bar and not a Scene. (You know where I'm talking about. It starts with P and ends with "op's".) Like Olu said, it'd be a good place to hang out and watch a Giants game. Three stars. We'll be back.

Worst spam ever

Fuck you. You're not even trying. At least you need to come up with a whole little letter about how I've won the Irish lottery and my email address was selected at random and so on and so forth. With some good ALL-CAPS names and Barrister Whatever garbage.

Since your email is from a Chilean domain (.cl), you may not know this, but they use the Euro in Ireland, not the pound.

Fucking idiots. It's like I've got to do everything for you people.

I really don't have a good title for this post. It's kind of all over the place.

- You know what the best part about the health care thing passing is? NOT HAVING TO TALK ABOUT IT ANY MORE. I am so fucking sick of hearing about it every day. My fave k-razy right wing radio guys are going to have to find some new topics and I couldn't be happier because now we can talk about Returning to the Gold Standard or Invading Belize or whatever kind of loony shit they can think up instead of health care. THANK FUCKING GOD.

- Tiger likes to text. Here's my fave:

Tiger:Sent: 07:12 PM 09/07/2009: No turkey unless it's a club sandwich

Me too! TIGER AND I ARE BROS. I pretty much only like turkey in club sandwiches myself. Now, I can do a turkey and ham - that's kind of a modified club, since the real club involves bacon - but I mostly avoid turkey in other sandwich settings.

You know what happens when you bring him a turkey sandwich?

Tiger:Sent: 5:00 PM 08/29/2009: I really do want to be rough with you. Slap you around

O M G!! That's totally how I get when someone tries to force some turkey bullshit on me!

- Oh, have I got a deal for you: $35 for a one-hour Singing-Bowl Therapy Session:

You'll be placed with a small group of no more than 20 people (average of around 10 to 12) as you all let yourself relax to the tones of tranquility. Singing-Bowl Therapy delivers the unspoiled melodies of seven pure-crystal singing bowls that resonate at various pitches to fill the mind and flow through the body's inner networks. Each bowl is designed to stimulate one of the seven chakras. Beautiful frequencies restore order to the chakras and the result is a deeply focused center and a clearer state of mind.

I hoope the bowls are full of vodka or this customer's chakras are going to be pissed. Are you some kind of idiot who still relies on wine glass choirs? Dude, get with the fucking program:

Wine-glass choirs require constant attention and finger wetting, while a 60-minute singing-bowl session lets a patient rest at ease as the harmonic realm enters his or her consciousness.

Oh, something's entering my consciousness, alright.

And I don't even smoke pot

Something about this cartoon really irritates me:



I won't get into the portrayal of people who buy sweatshop-free clothes and fair trade coffee as smug and superior. On the one hand, good for those people for thinking about where their stuff comes from and caring enough to spend a little more to avoid clothes made by an 8-year-old for a dollar an hour or coffee grown on a plantation and blanketed with pesticide. On the other hand, the people that buy that stuff usually are smug and superior. Still, it's a lame construct because it's so easy. It's shooting coastal elites in a barrel.

So that's annoying. But I really dislike the implication that people who smoke pot are somehow responsible for murderous Mexican drug gangs. For one thing, although Mexico remains a huge producer of marijuana, I bet the liberal coastal elite types portrayed here either pay more for quality hydroponic shit or have a medical marijuana card like everyone else.

And, as I think is pretty clear, it's not marijuana that makes murders; it's the illegality of marijuana. Make it legal and my guess is that marijuana-related drug gang violence drops precipitously. After all, you can probably count on one hand the number of illegal cigarette-related murders every year.

It is no doubt true that if Americans suddenly stopped buying marijuana, some amount of violence in Mexico would be reduced (although I'm not sure how much, because I'm willing to bet that a huge amount of the violence stems from trade in cocaine and methamphetamine, rather than pot). But it's also true that decriminalization would do the same thing.

Kind of a drag for a Friday! Sorry! I'll be funny again next week!

Word of the Day: Quixotic

Let me get this out of the way first: No St. Patrick's Day bullshit here. I'm married to a girl from Ireland. Every day is motherfucking St. Patrick's Day in my house. No, let's talk politics! Oh yay.

Two days ago I was walking home when two guys coming the other way stopped me and jammed a flyer into my hand. It was for a guy running for Nancy Pelosi's seat in the House. I said, "Well, good luck with that," because Nancy Pelosi has about the same chances of losing an election in her district as Castro does in Cuba. They sailed past me. "Yeah, we need to get rid of that witch," one of them called over his shoulder.

When I got home, I looked the guy up. It's this guy, Summer Shields. He looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place him. Then I remembered where I'd seen him - in front of a big poster of Obama with a Hitler mustache, at Civic Center Plaza one day. That's the way to win votes in San Francisco! Oh wait, here's a picture:



This is what someone who's not electable in San Francisco looks like.

As it turns out, Summer Shields is a follower of Lyndon LaRouche. A taste of what that's all about:

For those unfamiliar with the range of his thinking, Mr. LaRouche also claims that the Queen of England “personally runs the military and intelligence services” of the United Kingdom, and recently suggested that “top circles in London, who are furious at President Barack Obama for flubbing the British demands to impose fascism on the United States,” may soon “attempt to assassinate the President.”

And so forth. Let me be out in the open here and say that I'm not a huge Pelosi fan and I don't think she's a particularly effective Speaker of the House. Even my Dad and I agreed that if we still had Tip O'Neill in charge, the health care bill would have been passed and signed about a month after we started talking about it. But that's beside the point. The point, which should be blindingly obvious, is this: You cannot march around SF with pictures equating Obama and Hitler and expect to be elected anything, much less unseat the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Maybe in Texas, but not here.

In other political news, Unfortunately-coiffed Meg Whitman is in a virtual dead heat with Jerry Brown in the governor's race. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that her TV ads are on every 30 fucking seconds and Jerry is doing his best to keep his candidacy a secret from everyone except his closest advisors. I don't know. Want to know why Meg can't win? Read this.

Today's Top 5

1. Bernal Heights Park

When you get a dog, your park focus changes from "Can I drink there without getting hassled?" to "Can I let my dog off-leash there?" Bernal Heights park (or maybe it's just called "Bernal Hill," I don't know) is kind of an ideal off-leash park. There's a long paved road (with no cars) that winds around the hill, and because it's steep on both sides, dogs tend to just stay on the road and not wander off. Bonus for the incredible views. The picture in the title box of this blog was taken from there. I go like twice a weekend now. BHP rules.

2. Hipster Puppies

I don't know who writes this, but it's spot-on, a perfect mix of skewering hipster pretention and zOMG KYOOT PUPPIES!!11!11! Like so:



clara is always first to change the subject to politics, but gets 90% of her information from gawker and the daily show

[photo via jennifer c]

In a disturbing development, there haven't been any new posts since Friday 3/5. DON'T YOU DIE ON ME, HIPSTER PUPPIES!

3. Califone, "All My Friends Are Funeral Singers"

Great album. Here's a taste:



4. Jessica and Stephen finally moved to SF.

From Berkeley. It usually goes the other way! Now they can pay too much for a small apartment and get parking tickets and wait in line for the Bi-Rite Creamery and have a homeless man spit on them and stumble home from the Latin American Club and make fun of the people in Dolores Park and start a photoblog and go to an underground dinner party and get hit on by a drunk girl at the Dyke March like the rest of us.

5. Cheese.

In honor of SXSW. And then a lengthy digression.

In honor of SXSW, I present to you my very first blog post, 2 years ago, entitled "I'm so sick of SXSW." Enjoy.

Hey, that's an easy way to get out of creating new content! No matter. Sentiment remains the same.

(And please, for the love of God, I beg you, please do not send me notes congratulating me on my "blogaversary" or the like. I remain fundamentally opposed to any cobbled-together words beginning with "blog." Generic called them portmanteau and that word didn't turn out to mean what I thought it meant but after I looked it up our conversation made a lot more sense since it means a cobbled-together word and not a French butler.)

(Speaking of not knowing what words mean, The Sister is kind of famous for this. She thought "teetotaler" meant a troublemaker, so to her, the sentence "Looks like the teetotalers are comng!" was fraught with danger.)

(She also used to use the word "touche" just as a general sort of conversational punctuation, until she found out its proper use. Like someone would say "That's it, I'm out of here" and she would say "Touche.")

(I love The Sister to death and I don't mean to make fun of her. Her little quirks are more endearing than embarrassing.)

So, yeah. I don't want to hear about SXSW. Have a nice weekend. Unless you're at SXSW. Then I hope you miss the Datarock show and have to walk back to your hotel in the rain.

(Also, I'm not changing the Random Flickr Image of the Day today because (1) nobody ever notices it or cares about it anyway, I surmise, and (2) I like the current image a lot.)

My anthropomorphic mop is in love with my Thomas Kinkade statuette

You know those Swiffer ads with the anthropomorphic brooms? That are, like, in love with the housewife? And are kind of borderline creepy because they're stalking her a little? Like this one?


You see her just standing there when he's at the door? She's all "I can't hear you!" Bitch.

This one might even be a little creepier:



Swiffer's on Chatroulette! At least the mop isn't jacking off. Ew.

[SIDE NOTE: Like everyone else with a pulse and an Internet connection, I checked out ChatRoulette. I didn't see even one naked person. What am I doing wrong?]

These ads had kind of the opposite of the desired effect on The Wife (at least, the opposite of what I assume is the desired effect) because she full on felt totally sorry for the broom or the mop or whatever cleaning implement had gotten dumped. So much so that I think she was nursing kind of a secret grudge against Swiffer.

Well, I bet a lot of people felt the same way and the collective discomfort at the plight of the broom and mop trickled up to Swiffer, because the new ads are sort of conciliatory or something! Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a video of them online, but the basic idea is that the Swiffer has found new love with another household object, thus satisfying the possibly competing needs of the hausfrau for Improved Cleaning Technology and the Anthropomorphic Mop for a nonorganic love interest. And then I grew up and started caring about real things.

Chuck Nevius and the Case of the Manufactured Outrage

Oh, Chuck Nevius:

Last week, East Bay resident Bruce Marks took his wife to dinner in North Beach. What he failed to notice was that after a certain hour parking was restricted. When he came back after dinner, the car was gone. In all, it cost Marks $375 to redeem his car and another $75 for the ticket. Think he'll be back to the city to eat any time soon?

I know what you want from us, Chuck. You want us to be all "San Francisco is so unfriendly! You can't even eat dinner in this town without getting your car towed!" That's a good, simple, knee-jerk reaction that appeals on a primitive level but doesn't really work here.

I feel for East Bay resident Bruce Marks but when I park in SF, or anywhere really, I pause a moment to take a look at the signs that say whether or not you can park there, especially in a high-density neighborhood like North Beach. What do you suggest we do, Chuck? Eliminate parking restrictions in North Beach? That should work out well. Or maybe have a special suburbanite tag that East Bay residents can get so they can park at will when they come to SF?

Wanna avoid getting your car towed? Read the parking signs. Seriously, it's not rocket science.

Random thoughts on that movie award thing they had last night

- Quentin, man, wait until after the show. That cocaine's not going to get stale in 3 hours.

- I previously wrote about "The Hurt Locker" and how I think it's kind of overrated, but THANK GOD that won and not "Avatar." I know it's cool to hate on "Avatar" now and I'm not trying to jump on any bandwagon or anything, but man was that a bad movie. The 3-D was cool enough, I guess, but all those people who say it was like watching someone else play a Wii game for 2 1/2 hours are right on. Any movie that has the line "You're not in Kansas anymore" should be automatically disqualified.

- What the fuck was Sean Penn going on about? "I never became an official member of the Academy, but the Academy and I do have in common that we neglected to acknowledge the same actress in our own ways two years running. So I'm going to start fresh with the Academy and acknowledge these wonderful actresses." OK then!

- Those fucking speeches before the Best Actor and Best Actress awards: kill me now.

- "At Vanity Fair's bash at West Hollywood's Sunset Tower Hotel, a string of celebrities, including Lenny Kravitz and Jon Voight, sought out [snowboarder Shaun] White." Sometimes "celebrities" should be in quotes.

- This is the funniest thing I read all night, after (I think) the winner for cinematography said his parents came from Italy "with four suitcases and a dream":

Molls, you crack me up.

What your celebrity crush says about you

If you like: Megan Fox

You think of yourself as: Edgy, maybe a little dangerous

But really you're: A slightly overweight guy who watches NASCAR and owns a copy of "Blades of Glory"

Something you know that I don't: The name of any mixed martial arts fighter

If you like: Robert Pattinson

You think of yourself as: A willowy, mysterious creature, not meant for this world

But really you're: A damaged girl with a LiveJournal

Something you know that I don't: Whether you can cut open your arm with a piece of a broken Tegan & Sara CD jewel case

If you like: Hayden Panettiere

You think of yourself as: A normal guy

But really you're: A friend of PedoBear

Something you know that I don't: Ke$ha lyrics


If you like: Benicio del Toro

You think of yourself as: Quirky, artsy, out of the mainstream

But really you're: Weird

Something you know that I don't: How much of a cut Etsy takes on stuff you sell

If you like: Tara Reid

You think of yourself as: A washed-up alcoholic

But really you're: A washed-up alcoholic

Something you know that I don't: What I did last Friday night

The Bachelor finale: On the Wings of Retarded

Today, I've heard from 3 different and unconnected sources that Jake is probably gay. That explains why our final 2 choices are a manface and giggly faux-virgin.

ANYWAY, here we are FINALLY at the end of this Amazing Journey and we have Tenley and Vienna, which sound like colors of clothing in the Anthropologie catalog but which are actually people. We're all on Saint Lucia which looks like a cross between The Future and the island from Lost. Jake's family is here. They're about exciting as him and they cry a lot, except for Mom, who has some very particular questions about whether the girls get along with their other girl friends. This makes me think there may be an estranged Pavelka who didn't get invited to St. L.

(SIDE NOTE At first I thought all the peeps in the vacay cottage were Jakes' relatives and was marvelling at the depth and breadth of the Pavelka family, but my associate then informed me that 2 of the chicks were the brothers' wives. I liked the one with the rag mop haircut and faux-kindercore dress. I bet she likes the Decemberists a lot.)

So Tenley comes around first and everyone just fucking loves her. JUST FUCKING LOVES HER. Dad bursts into tears, of course, and Mom only has a slight facial tic when she mentions her previous marriage. Tenley is pretty much the perfect chick to bring home to Mom and Dad because she's unfailingly nice and pleasant and all that Xanax did the trick! She shows how goofy she can get by jumping in the pool with her clothes on. Oh, Tenley! First this, next crushing up Oxycontin and snorting it.

(The Wife, on the pool scene: "What a surprise, Captain Abs is naked again.")

Vienna shows up the next day and everyone hates her! Why would that be? Because Jake told them all she was a conniving bitch who wrote hate notes to all the girls in the house? Probably! Anyway, it's all very awkward at first. But then, through the magic of TV, things change and Vienna gets a chance to show her real side and the Sisters in Law are forced to tearfully admit that she's not so bad and she'd be a fine Pavelka which isn't even remotely true. She's very, very bad and will end up getting hammered at Thanksgiving and yelling "None of you ever cared about me!" and storming out. That's just a theory. I wouldn't know about anything like that.

Time for the big proposal. First there are lots of shots of Jake staring REAL HARD into middle distance and walking around with his tie untied. OK, here they come. Tenley gets there first and Jake goes blah blah blah I don't know Tenley. She cries a lot. They trundle her back to the ROFLcopter and she gets taken back to Pleasantville or wherever she's from. You know what? Tenley needs to date a Laker. Just do something to loosen up.

OK, here comes Stupid Fetal Alcohol Face. Jake's trying to propose but she won't fucking shut up!!! What the fuck is wrong with you? OK, there he goes. Yeah, of course she says yes. They're never going to get married.

Ali's the next Bachelorette. I will recap the shit out of that show, believe you me.

Why I want to work at American Apparel

I get a lot of hits on this blog from people Googling “Why I want to work at American Apparel,” because one time I posted a thing about working at American Apparel. I assume that American Apparel has some question on their application asking the Prospective Applicant why he or she wants to work there. It is kind of desperately sad that people have to Google that shit to come up with an answer.

So in the interest of helping all you kids out there who wish I would just stop with the editorializing and get to the good part, here’s an answer you can just copy ‘n paste:

Why I Want to Work at American Apparel

By your name here

Nietzsche once said, “Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.” This may be true in some circumstances, but my admiration for American Apparel is so strong that I want to strive not only to possess it, but also to help others to do the same. Given that our time on Earth is both fleeting and precious, we behoove ourselves to spend the time until we shuffle off this mortal coil being fashionable, nay, creating fashion, be it with a Cotton Wide Stripe Jersey Cardigan or a Nylon Spandex Stretch Lace Diamond Grid Bodysuit. Rage, rage against the dying of the light in a Stretch Twill High-Waist Side Zipper Short! We are only as good as our Flex Fleece Zip Hoodies.

Yes, death awaits us all. But when the inevitable occurs and I am summoned home by my Lord, I have but one wish: that those who knew me should honor my name and say “Your name here lived his life. He shone like a star. He did not just work – he worked at American Apparel.”

Guys talk archive

Oh, hey. Guys hate it when you talk about your ex all the time and when you TEXT IN THE MIDDLE OF DINNER. I didn't pay $22 for those scallops to sit there and be seared and watch you play on your fucking phone. No, guys and girls cannot be "just friends." The best yearbook message ever was "U R Cute" from Cindy C. in 4th grade. The hottest after-school activity you can do is I don't know, what kind of weird fucking question is that? Since when are after-school activities "hot"? That is some Chris Hansen shit right there.

My biggest turnoff is bad spelling and grammar.