New Bar Night: Mid-Market Edition

Mid-Market is a long-bedraggled area of San Francisco that has apparently been on the skids since they tore up Market Street to build BART back in the 1850's.  Last night we were trying to figure out exactly what the boundaries are.  I guessed 5th to roughly Guerrero but wow was I off; according to Wikipedia it's 5th to Van Ness.

Twitter was supposed to save Mid-Market by moving into the huge old Furniture Mart at 1355 Market, so it seemed fitting to begin there, at Dirty Water, which I think is actually a restaurant more than a bar but whatever.  They have the usual $14-16 cocktails but a nice happy hour special - either a Moscow Mule or a very good Old Fashioned made with Buffalo Trace for $8.  Obviously I got the Old Fashioned because how else would I know it was good.  It was good.

[Oddly, Dirty Water's URL - dirtywatersf.com - redirects to the OpenTable page linked above. In fact, Dirty Water doesn't seem to have its own website at all, which is strange in 2016 for a big expensive restaurant. The significance of this, if any, is left to you.]

The place was pretty empty at 5:30 on a Tuesday and happy hour ends at 6 anyway so we split and went across the hall to the food court/bar thing called The Market they also have in the Twitter building so we could watch the Giants pathetically get shut out by the Red Sox and also have a few slices from Tony's Slice House, which were excellent, and a couple of Firestone Pilsners, which were also excellent.

We were actually sitting at the bar of the Tapas Bar but it's pretty much all interchangeable and you can eat the food from one station at another station.  We were surrounded by a couple of open laptops on the bar and lots of Attractive Young White People.  The only disconcerting thing was that every 30-45 seconds there was a huge muffled BOOM like someone was dropping something extraordinarily heavy on the floor directly above us.  We asked the bartender.  She speculated that it was maybe the bass.  It was not the music.  Obviously there is something fucking going on and the employees have been instructed to keep silent.

Next we went to the Hot Spot, a longtime Market Street dive that closed for a while when next door neighbor Alta CA was getting built and then reopened, after some difficulty.  I hadn't been in since the remodel.  It looks nice and now there are electrical outlets every 5 feet so you know that shit was done to code.

I have no idea what Hot Spot is like on a normal Tuesday because last night it was fucking PACKED with kids because Phish was playing virtually next door at the Bill Graham.  They were yelling and drinking craft beers so Olu and I retreated to the upstairs loft where the pool table is.

Taken from Hot Spot's Yelp page. I have no idea what this dog has to do with Hot Spot. I assume thew picture was taken there? Anyway, this dog sadly contemplating the world looks like we did surrounded by 20-something SCREAMING at Hot Spot before the Phish show.

Anyway, $8 for 2 PBRs.  Would return on a non-Phish-show night.

Final stop: Mr. Tipple's Recording Studio.  God, enough with the cutesy names already.  Ugh.  Ugh.  Mr. Tipple's looks like a fairly nice hotel bar and there was live jazz playing.  It's the usual fancy cocktails, with a twist - they're all a couple of dollars more than the price on the menu because the bar automatically adds 20% for tip!  Ha, what an unusual surprise to order a $12 cocktail and only get $5 and some quarters back!  I was going to ask the bartender why I was getting shorted and then saw this on the back of the drink list:

Please know right up front that we're applying 20% to each check to be distributed to all hourly employees who work tonight. This eliminates your need to tip, it will have already been included.

Well, Mr. Tipple's, if you want people to know "right up front," put it on the front page of the damn menu because we were surprised as hell. I guess if you're in the Exciting Mid-Market area and you want to grab a $15 drink that contains kirschwasser, whatever the fuck that is and don't have to say the name out loud to anyone, Mr. Tipple's is your place.

This Dolores Park fee thing smells like some bullshit, even if it's somehow not

What are we outraged about today?  Why, the Rec and Parks Department renting chunks of Dolores Park, the beloved humanity hive in Mission Park.  Patient Zero for Today's Rage appears to be SFist:

This should end well. A two-month pilot program from the Recreation and Parks Department now allows people to reserve sections of Dolores Park for periods of at least seven hours. And no, not the picnic table areas (which you've always been able to reserve), but just straight up sections of grass near Hipster Hill/Fixie Flats. What's more, on weekends Rec and Parks plans on having staff on site to enforce the reservations — so you better not sit in someone's spot.

Yes, it costs money. And yes, the primary way to book the spots is online. The new practice of course calls to mind the infamous Soccer Field War of 2014 in which longtime, Mission-born players ran up against a new reservation system being used by recent transplants and tech employees, ultimately causing neighborhood kids to get kicked off what they saw as their own fields.

According to the Rec and Parks website, in order to reserve your own little piece of Dolores heaven, now all you have to do is apply and pay the fee of $33 to $260 (depending on group size, and not including the $200 security deposit). "All requests for Mission Dolores must complete an online Picnic Application," the site explains.

The predictable Blinding Rage Kabuki followed: (1) Rage Trigger; (2) Angry Twitter; (3) Wait, this isn't a big deal; (4) My dumb opinion.

Number three took the form of tweets like this:

@cynthia_says @michesf With all due respect, I'm not sure I see the story here. You can reserve areas at EVERY park. Am I missing something?

— Joe Eskenazi (@EskSF) May 24, 2016

Well, sure. Everyone knows you can rent picnic areas (which is basically a picnic table or two and a grill that has been used so much it looks like it was dipped in molten iron and then hastily left to dry, or maybe Forged in the Fires of the Ur-Griller Carbo.  I was at such an event last Saturday in Golden Gate Park, even!  Some people even know you can rent the picnic areas in Dolores Park.

But this seems different.  We're not talking about a clearly delineated area like a picnic table.  No, this is just an imaginary square in the middle of the grass.

See that "NW-A"?  Unfortunately, it's not a set-aside area for performances by the legendary Compton ensemble.  It's picnic area A, and I guess if you rent it you have the right to control who shall enter and stay upon your private grasstangle.  You better get some velvet ropes and a big fucking bouncer, because based on how crowded Dolores Park gets on weekends, keeping the Undesirable and the Uninvited out of your Rented Piece of Paradise is going to be a Grade A Bitch.

So Rec & Parks' position is basically "Nothing new here, it's always been this way, we have always been at war with Eastasia," but I've been going to parks for a long time and I have never seen any square of grass that someone was claiming squatters rights on and telling me not to sit there because they had a fucking permit.

The problem OF COURSE like everything else in Our Garbage City is bigger than just this latest flap.  It's about the Public Good being sold off for Private Use and it's just another chapter in the Dropbox Soccer Bros tale of the newly arrived wealthy and entitled kicking the rest of us off of public facilities that we've been paying for a lot longer than they have.  RESENTMENT SELLS and gets clicks to boot.

So I don't know, maybe Rec and Parks really has been selling imaginary sections of the park off for daily use since Time Immemorial and we've just never noticed because we've never accidentally trod onto someone's private square of park, but the whole thing seems fishy as hell.

(All that being said, I still don't get why people shove themselves into every square inch of Dolores Park whil,e acres of other parks sit empty.  Convenience, I guess.  Still.)

UPDATE!!!!!!: It's over.  They're not doing it.  You can reserve the picnic tables, but the Grasstangles 2016 is dead.  RIP grasstangles.

(POSTSCRIPT: I know my assignment today was Day 2 of Computer Generated Week of Blogging, specifically "14 Common Misconceptions About Booze," so just repeat to yourself "alcohol is universally good or bad" 14 times.)

Who the fuck is Emirates' target demo?

If you live anywhere or have a TV or exist in the world you've seen Emirates Airlines' ubiquitous advertising, which usually features deeply contented youngish people casually enjoying a glass of probably scotch and a plate of probably lobster while seated in a plush beige airplane seat.  The ads are plastered all over the Powell BART station even as we speak.

Photo courtesy: Me. For once, I didn't steal someone else's picture.

Many, if not most, of these ads feature some kind of unimaginable Ultimate Premium First Class.  Like check out that chick on the right.  She's just getting OUT OF THE FUCKING SHOWER on the airplane.  I can't even stand up straight in an airplane bathroom and this lady's at a fucking air spa.

That's not all you get in First Class!  You get to "savor gourmet meals whenever you please" and "join the conversation in our A380 Onboard Lounge," which looks like the douchiest bar this side of Eastside West.

"You ladies come here often? WANT TO?"

LOOKS GREAT.  Who doesn't want to savor some gourmet meals and then shower off the scent of Axe body spray you'll get from standing in the same room as Chas up there?  Let's go to, say, Singapore!

Yikes!  That's a lot of money.  Singapore's a long way away, though, and you can take lots of showers.

Point is, I've never seen another airline use as their primary marketing focus a class of service that 99% of its customers will ever see.  Isn't it just setting up all us Coach Cattle for disappointment?  "Wait, where's my shower?  Can I go to the Onboard Lounge?"  "SILENCE, DONKEY PERSON.  RETAKE YOUR SEAT AND EAT YOUR FOOD PELLET QUIETLY!!!"  Seems weird.

Anyway, we're off to the less exotic destination of San Diego via a United Flying Person Crate, so see ya later.

The Bars That Time Forgot, an occasional series, vol. V: The Embers

I lived on Frederick Street in the early 90's, not far from the now-trendy Inner Sunset, which back then just Just a Neighborhood and not a thing real estate agents put on flyers.  It was just regular stuff.  Still a great neighborhood, just relatively undiscovered, I guess.

One place that didn't want to be discovered was The Embers, a depressing and frightening dive bar at 627 Irving, between 7th and 8th.  The Embers was a small dark room with the usual dive bar accoutrements, like old guys chainsmoking in front of Bud bottles and a surly (at least that's how I remember him) bartender.  You can still get all that stuff today if you know where to look.  But the Embers had one terrifying feature that other dive bars lacked: the walls were covered in pictures of CLOWNS. AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

It's surprisingly difficult to find pictures of this haunting decor online.  Of course I was young and stupid and it never occurred to me to take pictures.  Back then, taking pictures required carrying a camera around with you, so it wasn't as convenient.  Also, parking was easier.  Anyway.  Luckily, I found some pics on Snapcity.com, and hopefully the owner of Snapcity.com doesn't get mad at me for using them here.

You can get kind of a sense of what was going on from these pictures, but it doesn't really convey the full horror of walls covered in clown pictures.  It was really something.

Jack Boulware wrote a great piece on the bar for SF Weekly:

Neither clowns nor smokes have ruined business for the Embers, which Jack has operated since 1969 at its present Irving Street location, and run in other Geary Boulevard incarnations since 1955. The clown motif began with Jack's wife, who installed four clown pictures originally to fill up a blank wall of the joint. Customers latched onto the idea and kept bringing in more and more clown artifacts, many from all over the world, until today the bar is literally packed with clown images.

"Some girl brought me in one last week," says Jack, a spry 70-year-old in blue striped sport shirt and khakis.

The Embers sadly passed in 1996.  Now it's Pluto's, some kind of faux health food place I think?  I went there once and couldn't figure it out.

I'm on hiatus

It's that time of year. Time to engage in some uncomfortable air travel and see the relatives and whatever.  I'll be back.

I Have Read the Lindley Meadow Picnic Area Rules, and They Are Fascist as Hell

Everyone's debunking!  Some people have read Proposition F, and other people have read what people who read Proposition F said.  Who knows?  Everybody's probably wrong.  Whatever.  For everyone's benefit, I read the Lindley Meadow Picnic Area rules and they are not what they seem!!!

One of the grandest green spaces in glorious Golden Gate Park is Lindley Meadow. Its grassy area stretches along the south edge of JFK Drive in the center of the park, spilling down a steep bank into a wide flat space with picnic tables and grills tucked into the eucalyptus border. Lindley Meadow is a splendid place for a party!

Right off the bat, LIES.  Lindley Meadow isn't one of the "grandest green spaces" in Golden Gate Park, despite what this alliteration-addled author might have you believe.  It's an average green space at best.  In fact, it's really brown in places, as you can see in the photo above.  Good luck with your garbage picnic in the middle of that dirt hole.

It's a "splendid place for a party" if you like choking dust and grass stains, all right.

Let's get to the "Picnic and Party Features," which is just the GG Park jackboots' way of saying "Life Restrictions/Buzzkills":

1. Restrooms are located at the Equestrian Center just west of Lindley Meadow.

2. Cheers! Beer and wine are welcome at Lindley Meadow, but kegs and liquor are not. Remember: carrying open alcoholic beverages outside the picnic area is never permitted.

Oh, I guess we all should wear matching uniforms and sing "How Great Thou Art" too. Have you ever been to anything fun that didn't have kegs and liquor?  ANSWER: NO.  Beer and wine is fine for the kids, but a function without kegs and liquor is like a day without a dumb startup.  You probably can't have any snacks with high fructose corn syrup either, but I haven't checked with Eric Mar to be sure.

Also, I carry alcoholic beverages around my house all the time, which is "outside the picnic area," so come and get me, Happy Police, I guess I broke the rules.

3. Jump! Inflatable play structures are welcome (additional permit required). No electricity is provided.

See how they snuck that "additional permit required" hoping you wouldn't notice?  That's them telling you that your 10,000 square foot inflatable Larry Ellison Japanese Junior Jump Palace will be hung up in Planning for 18 months before you finally get a permit.  Happy Birthday!  NOW THAT YOU'RE MUCH OLDER.

5. Food-Trucks require an extra permit.

Here's a perfect example of the Regulatory State smothering our economy.  Today it's "Food-Trucks" that require a permit, tomorrow it's "Your-Disgusting-Fucking-Kale-Salad."  BACK OFF GOLDEN GATE PARK JUST LET ME LIVE!!!!

Million Dickhead Listing SF: So much fucking greed. Greed pouring out of people's eyes.

Remember Gordon Gekko's famous greed speech speech from the movie "Wall Street"?



What seemed somewhere between disturbing and obscene in 1987 now seems positively quaint.  And compared to the viperous house-leeches on last night's episode, Gordon Gekko is basically St. Augustine.  These people don't just want obscene gobs of money for their houses; they want huge, dripping bags of money, with gold coins falling out the top and huge dollar signs on the side.  Every extra $50K gives them visible full-body orgasms.  It's quite a scene.

Justin finds himself in SOMA, as we call it, where some people bought a boring-ass loft a few years ago for $1.2 million and now want $2.1 because symmetry.  He decides the way to market this thing is with an Airnstream trailer at Off the Grid Fort Mason because, in his words, "If you want to find dumb rich hipster techies you have to go to a food truck festival."  Finally, we agree on something, Justin!  He shows the box to a stream of dejected buyers, disappointed in the lack of a gym or rooftop deck or why is this kitchen not bigger and why didn't Mommy look at me every second I'm so special.

Roh is trying to move some huge pile in the Marina - a "very sexy area," he says.  If the Marina were a person, you would probably fuck it.  Anyway, the owner of  this huge 2-unit pile that looks like a hotel in Sarasota bought it for $3.2 mil 10 years ago and now Roh thinks he can get her 4.6.  She and her accent seem cool with that.

Andrew, meanwhile, is in what they're calling Nopa now, which, he says, "used to be a shithole," like everywhere else he goes in Our Garbage City.  Some dude with some yappy dogs is trying to move his condo for too much and Andrew gets him to set it at $1.098 mil.  After everything else on this fucking show, that seems like a huge bargain.

Back in the Marina, Roh is having trouble moving Casa Grande, maybe because everyone knows that it will melt like hot wax and sink into the warm, bubbling mud as soon as there's any earthquake over a 6.5 and you're basically paying almost 5 mil to rent a house until that happens.  He actually uses the word "liquefaction" at one point which is a better buyer repellent than saying there was a torture-murder in the solarium or the prior owner was a cat hoarder.

HERE COMES THE GREED.  Everyone's getting offers and none of the money-breathers want to take them.

GREED #1: Roh gets a full-price offer for a building that is literally going to vanish into the liquid Earth sometime in the next 30 years and SHE WON'T TAKE IT.  She wants more money!  MORE MORE MORE MORE MONEY MORE FOR ME MONEY MONEY MONEY

GREED #2: Justin meets up with Stephanie who I guess is the SOMA box's seller agent at Big 4, which must have a kickback arrangement with this show, for a couple of blood orange bellinis and TURNS DOWN his all-cash no contingency offer of $1.7 million.  ARRRRGGGHHH FUCK ALL THESE PEOPLE.  But they'll take 1.8.  This is the kind of dick-swinging that even people named Stephanie do for fun.

GREED #3: Roh gets it up to 4.7 million.  Greedhead wants MORE MORE MORE MORE but finally takes 4.8.

GREED #4: Even the nice little man with the 2 dogs and the tastefully furnished place in "Nopa" is getting in on the action now.  1.098 million?  NO I WANT MORE MONEY PLUS I WANT TO KEEP LIVING THERE FOR FREE.  Surprisingly, tentacles do not burst forth from the ground and drag this man screaming into a dark netherworld but the buyers instead are like "OK sure!  Here, take more money and keep living there for a few more months."

In closing, this show is depressing as fuck.

Your Complete 2015 Guide to Complaining About the Outside Lands Music Festival

1. The Lineup

Wilco?  Mumford & Sons?  The Black Keys?  More like Outside Dads, amirite?  And Elton John, for Chrissake?  That's not dad rock, that's great-grandad rock.  At least there's not a comedy joke band as a headliner, like they had one year.

Did you hear what Wilco did at the Pitchfork festival a couple of weeks ago?  The day before the thing started, they released a new album on iTunes or something and then they started their set at the festival by playing the entire album all the way through.  "Hey, we're Wilco, thanks for coming, here's 12 songs you've never heard before, fuck you."

2. Ticket prices

$135 a day, or $325 for 3 days.  That's expensive!  Mumford doesn't need any more of your money.  He'll probably just give it to Carey Mulligan anyway.

3. They shut down the whole park for weeks

via Twitter celeb Miche:

The damn festival's only for three days!  Why you keeping me out of my park that I pay good tax money to use for 13 days!  Or 12 days.  I don't remember whether you count the start and end days or how that works.  Anyway, they fence off a big section of the park.  It sucks!

4. Muni sucks

I mean, generally, but especially on the festival days, anywhere west of Van Ness or near a BART station.  Imagine trying to get home and waiting for a 5 Fulton only to see it zoom by without stopping, packed Tokyo-subway-like with horrible stoned teens wearing fringe vests and stupid hats.  And forget taking Uber anywhere; usually it's 1700x surge pricing or some shit.

5. Literally get off my lawn

If you need a bottle of Fireball during OL for a practical joke or to clean engione parts, good luck finding one because all the neighborhood liquor stores are sold out because all the execrable teens who were recently jamming up the Muni are now kneewalking drunk and peeing on your stoop.  That's right, if you live anywhere near GG Park this weekend, get ready for the Drunk Teen equivalent of the Mariel boatlift, as wave after wave of them crash upon your shore.  You can't even turn the hose on them because you might accidentally get some Drunk Teen runoff on your property.  Gross.

6. The Noise

Outside Lands features heavily amplified music that, depending on the weather conditions, is often audible well outside the park.  I made this map to help you evaluate your personal risk.

The best thing you can do is FLEE THE AREA.

Things that used to be cool or at least tolerable and are now almost certain dbag markers

Audis

Mohawks

Superpremium vodka

Coachella

Private planes

Cologne

MDMA

Working in the technology industry

Burning Man

Being a DJ

SOMA

OK, maybe Uber isn't all bad

The Wife and I went to a wedding in Saratoga, CA on Sunday.  Saratoga, if you're not familiar, is a cutesy little town with shops and restaurants and white people in shorts.  The wedding venue was one of those fancy gardens-type places that mostly exist just to be a place to have weddings.  I was under the initial impression that we could walk there from our hotel, since it appeared to be about a half-mile away on Google maps.  What Google maps did not reveal was that the road there was a tiny 2-lane thing with no sidewalks and cars whizzing by, and the gardens were at the top of a large hill with no sidewalks leading up to it, so ergo, no walking.

Obviously the open bar is the killer app of weddings and there was no way either of us were driving, so I called the local cab company and told the guy who answered we needed a cab at the hotel.  He asked me where we were going and when I said "Mystical Wedding Gardens," he suddenly said "Sorry we don't have any drivers in the area," which is of course total bullshit because he didn't say that until I told him we were only going about a half a mile and he clearly wasn't interested in a fare that low.  Ok, fuck you then.

So I turned to Uber.  Despite its relative proximity to Uber headquarters in SF, it appears that there is but one UberX driver serving the Saratoga area.  His name is Ali and he was just as nice as you can be.  Ali left his house and came and picked us up and took us to the wedding for $10.  $10 is a lot to go a half a mile but cheaper than lifelong paralysis after being hit by a car while walking on a 2-lane road or a DUI.

When the wedding was over around 10 pm, Ali left his house and came and picked us up and drove us back to our hotel, this time for only $7.  Bargain!  Ali seemed positively delighted to ferry two semi-drunk people around the corner to their hotel at 10 o'clock at night.  Thanks, Ali.

The moral of this mostly boring story is that I like to hate on Uber just as much as the next guy, but once again, the refusal of cab companies to provide the service for which they FUCKING EXIST proves that we need something like Uber or Lyft.  Now just start treating your employees like employees and not this contractor bullshit and we'll all be cool.

The end.

Modern Nursery Rhymes

Mary had an online troll
Online troll, online troll
Mary had an online troll
Who ruined her Internet

It followed her around online
Round online, round online
It followed her around online
Leaving disturbing threats

~~~~~ ** ~~~~~

Itsy bitsy spider signed up with Instacart

Down came her pay and broke the spider’s heart

Out came the lawyers who sued up and down the line

Now Itsy’s an employee, not a 1099

~~~~~ ** ~~~~~

The New Bay Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down

The New Bay Bridge is falling down

Lack of oversight!

~~~~~ ** ~~~~~

Baa baa No Vaxx Sheep, have you a disease?

Yes sir, yes sir, I have all of these:

Measles, rubella, whooping cough too 

Got a personal exemption; I don’t care about you

~~~~~ ** ~~~~~

Twinkle twinkle little bar

How I wonder where you are

Shelf of bourbon, shelf of rye

I need a drink or I’m gonna die

Twinkle twinkle little bar

Please be open, I’m not far

~~~~~ ** ~~~~~

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man

Make me some edibles as fast as you can

Doctor said pot would cure tinnitus in my ear

But who gives a crap, it’ll be legal next year!

~~~~~ ** ~~~~~

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe

She had rent control so it was only a hundred and two

But the landlord is Ellising her so soon she’ll be out

And the landlord will charge 12 times that amount!

What bar will your building have?

Noted local radio host/IPA enthusiast Burrito Justice had a bold proposal:

new SF zoning requirement: mandatory bar and/or live venue in every new condo development
— Burrito Justice (@burritojustice) April 23, 2015

I like it! Maybe because I had a similar thought not long ago and I always like it when people mirror at me.  That's how I get my self-worth and validation.

Anyway, it made me think.  If Burrito's plan becomes reality, what kind of bars would go with what kind of development?

3500 Nineteenth Street is a "balanced blend of urban living and comforatble luxury, rising above the rest."  Ugh.  Here's a 2-bedroom rising above the rest at $10,000 a month.  The Thought Leaders and App Monetizers who will live at 3500 Nineteenth demand a bar that understands their particular blend of infinite arrogance and crippling social disability, and now they have it:  SWIPE, a bar at which no human interaction is permitted.  Simply use the bespoke SWIPE app to order a $16 Red Bull & vodka, find out if vaping is allowed inside (only in the VapeShape Room, please), or message that cutie at the end of the bar.  Oh she works here.  OK.

The Massive Project at 16th and Mission has already been dubbed Royal Gate by local wags, and it shall have a bar befitting both its on point nickname and its location: DT's.  DT's will feature a fun, not really that friendly enviornment, where getting blackout drunk is on the menu! At DT's, you'll never have the embarrassment of having to ask where the bathroom is - it's everywhere!

The Proposed Condos at 16th and Albion have arrived at a fraught time in Mission development history, so its bar shall be called Moratorium.  Moratorium will feature drinks like the Planning Commissioner, which costs $3500 and use of your condo in Maui for a week.  Nobody saw you order it!

Surely you don't believe that the Richie Riches in Laurel Heights will ever allow 500 units of housing that are 40 feet tall at the UCSF Laurel Heights Campus do you?  The bar there will be called No Fucking Way.

I'm sure that the people who move into one of the Nine Condos Directly Behind Bottom of the Hill will be totally chill with loud music until 2 am and that awesome back patio where everyone totally keeps their voice down all the time. But they don't have to go next door to get a drink!  They can visit the onsite bar, Noise Complaint, which has a big bowl of earplugs on the bar and your city supervisor on speed dial.

The Elbo Room Condos will boast ElboRoomLand, an immersive experience that's guaranteed to take you back to your old Elbo Room days.  You'll enjoy sharing a joint with a white guy with dreadlocks as you bounce your head to the fourth-best touring Sublime cover band!  JAH LIKE.

Anatomy of Date Night gone wrong

When you have a kid, Date Night is a big deal because you get to go out with your Life Partner and someone else is taking care of your deal and so you want everything to go right because it doesn't happen that often.

Last night, everything did not go right.

The first part of the plan was to meet up with some friends at a Restaurant That Shall Not Be Named at around 6:30.  This plan was immediately complicated by the existence of April 20, which used to just be the day in April between the 19th and 21st but somehow in the past few years became 420, a big party in Golden Gate Park near our house where a bunch of stoners stand outside and smoke pot inside of sitting in their living room and smoking pot like normal people.  As a result, thousands of brain-damaged youth get someone to cover their shift at Carl's Jr and drive their cars from Concord or Antioch or whatever into a tiny corner of the city where my house is.  A trip of about 10 blocks leaving my house and heading for the Mission took about 15 minutes.  We were going to be very late.

[Not sure why this GG Park thing started.  It didn't happen a few years ago.  I blame Facebook.]

We got to the RTSNBN a little before 7:00, so actually not that bad!  It was very crowded.  Very, very crowded, which seemed odd for a Monday.  But the waitress appeared relatively soon and we got our drink orders in by say 7:00 p.m.

The FIRST INSTANCE OF CREEPING DREAD came when the waitress disappeared for the next 30 minutes.  No drinks, no taking our orders, nothing.  HERE is where I should reveal the rest of Date Night: we were going to see Porchlight, a monthly storytelling series at Verdi Club.  As it happens, one of our friends would be performing.  To make it more interesting, he was going on first, at 8:00 p.m.!  There's no way we wouldn't be done with dinner by 8 if we arrived at a nearby restaurant at 7, right?

Right?

Drinks appeared around 7:20, brought by Someone Who Was Not Our Waitress and in fact did not seem to know the names of the drinks.  We still have not ordered food.

The SECOND INSTANCE OF CREEPING DREAD came when I managed to flag our waitress down like I was a Semaphore Flag Operator in the Navy in 1942 so we could order food.  Now, at this point, I'm thinking, "OK, 7:30, get the food by 7:45, choke it down violently like a wolf eating a dismembered rabbit, and we can still make it by 8:00."  I asked for the check as we ordered to make this impossible dream feasible.

The THIRD INSTANCE OF CREEPING DREAD came when we passed 7:40 with no sign of food, waitress, drinks, anything.  I pulled out my Flare Gun and shot a flare at the ceiling.  It bounced back onto floor and spun crazily, sparks shooting out in every direction.  The waitress somehow saw us.  "We're trying to make an 8:00 show," I said.  "Is there any chance we'll have our food soon?"  She said she would check.

Having already paid, we finally got up to leave at 7:55 p.m.  We never got any food.  There was a manager type at the door.  He explained he knew what was going on, presumably because the waitress who could have been using her time getting us food or drinks was talking to him.  There was some confusion about whether he could just box it up or whatever but I think we concluded he would just credit our cards back.  TO RTSNBN'S GREAT CREDIT, it looks like they completely refunded the whole meal, drinks and everything.

We made it into the Verdi Club right around 8:00.  Saw our friend perform.  He was great.  At 8:15 I walked/jogged in a dizzy low blood sugar daze to the McDonald's on 16th and Potrero and Jose set me up with a Quarter Pounder with Cheese (for me) and a Filet O Fish (for my Date).  We ate them huddled in the corner of the Verdi Club like animals.  It was delicious.  

Last Night a QPC Saved My Life

By then, all the seats were filled and neither one of us felt like hearing any stories.  We watched a little standing in the back of the room and split.

I want to reiterate that RTSNBN did the right thing, maybe even more than the right thing, by totally refunding us.  The 2 free drinks apiece were nice.  But still, man, you gotta get your shit together if you're serving the public.

There will be other Date Nights, but there will never be another QPC that tastes as sweet.

Show Report: The Replacements, Nob Hill Masonic Center

The Replacements are a group of older gentlemen who play music.  I think I was 15 or 16 when I bought my first Replacements album.  From a record store.  With cash, because credit cards hadn't been invented yet.  They had a moment in the 80's and then a couple of them died and one of them played in Guns N Roses for a while, surprisingly.  Now they're touring again!  Good for them.

We met up at the Summer Place, a divey bar a couple of blocks from the Nob Hill Masonic Center, which hosts music shows when the #Illuminati aren't in there doing up the New World Order.  The Summer Place looked like a Halloween party where a bunch of middle aged people were dressed up as record store clerks in 1988.  Someone put some Replacements songs on the jukebox which felt a little too much like wearing a band's t-shirt to that band's show to me but hey it's a free country.

It was my first time at the NHMC.  Nice room, good sound, all that stuff.  John Doe was opening and I know he's a legendary figure in punk history and blah blah blah but all his songs sounded like a truck commercial.

The crowd was so fucking great because I finally WASN'T THE OLDEST PERSON AT THE SHOW.  It was so dadcore that it made other shows look like day care.  A sea of salt and pepper bobbing along to songs that were fleetingly popular when cigarettes cost 99 cents and Barack Obama was bogarting joints at Harvard Law.  My people had been summoned home.  Look, everybody, I can still fit into my Descendents shirt!

The band was great, of course.  I'm 6'4" and am used to having no trouble seeing at shows.  Hilariously, just as they started, a guy even taller than me came and stood right in front of me.

The Replacements used to be famous for their shambling, insanely drunk shows.  At their advanced age, they can't really drink three 40's of Mickey's and then play anything resembling a coherent show, so instead they just pretended to be drunk.  At least that's what Stephen thought.  Who knows?

Here's the setlist, or at least the closest approximation that Setlist.fm users have cobbled together.  They played pretty much everything you wanted to hear.  "I Will Dare" was messy and fun.  Paul Westerberg forgot most of the words to "Bastards of Young."  I loved the cover of "20th Century Boy" because it's objectively one of the best rock songs of all time so how could you not.  I left shortly before the end so I missed the last 2 or 3 songs but I have to get up at 5:40 in the morning so give me a break.

It was a fucking blast.  Now that the Pixies, Pavement, and The Replacements have all played reunion shows, all I need is for the Smiths and Jason & the Scorchers to get back together and my whole record collection from high school will be complete.  OLD N PROUD.

(Oh, one note - they close the bar apparently at 10:15 or so.  Why you gotta do that to me, NHMC?  There was a lot more music left!)

The Bachelor: Arlington, Where Hopelessness and Suicide Meet!

First off, let me say there was an hour-long clip show or something I will not be addressing because fuck you have to be kidding me plus it just looked like it was 30 minutes of The Widow Kelsey dissembling and 30 minutes of former Bachelorette Andi on a wicked crying jag.  Fuck that.

So we're still in fucking Deadwood like we are going to die in this cowboy Jersey shore.  Megan the Simple corners Farmer to ask him a very important question.  What is the sun.  No, it's actually what does he think about her.  I guess not much because suddenly she's leaving and now she'll never find out where babies come from.  There's supposed to be a Rose Ceremony anyway but Farmer cancels it because next WE'RE GOING TO IOWA and if he's going then by God every one of you has to go too.  Man, these chicks probably watched old seasons where every week was like ICELAND! PARIS! INDIA! and this season it's SOUTH DAKOTA! IOWA! A GAS STATION BATHROOM!  They got rooked but they still have to say bullshit like "Iowa is so pretty" and "Oh my God," I shit you not, to footage of pigeons.

OH MY GOD IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL

Solo date with Jade in Farmer's hometown!  Holy shit, Farmer's hometown is a Dorothea Lange picture but more depressing.  Oh look, it's the town sign!

Well, I guess "Where hills and prairie meet" is better than "Hellish Moonscape of Despair."  After a quick tour of Farmer's house, which looks like one of the places they don't pick on "House Hunters," it's off to downtown Arlington, a bleak nightmare of boarded-up stores and nothingness.  That night, they go to a football game at Farmer's old school and then after the crowd chants "Kiss! Kiss!" and these are their primitive mating rites in Arlington. Luckily we're not here for the "Kill! Kill!" ceremony.

Solo date with Baby Voice in the compared to Arlington vibrant metropolis of Des Moines.  "Des Moines has a real metropolitan feel to it," Farmer says, which means he saw a brown person there once.  They go to an "art gallery" and are so moved by the experience they spend the rest of the day taking snaps of each other.  DES MOINES: FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!!!!!

Meanwhile the rest of the chix decide to road trip to Arlington and check out their potential nightmarish future and they're wooing like they're going to Cabo instead of a Walking Dead set.  Their reactions when they actually get there are pretty priceless tbh and they have the vacant expressions of Vietnam vets who saw things you can't imagine, man.

HUMOROUS AND TRUE IOWA SIDENOTE: Whilst texting last night with a friend whose brother went to college in Iowa, we were unbelievably pleased to learn that friend's brother's first year roommate in Iowa hadn't seen an ESCALATOR until he was 17 years old.  MOVING STAIRS!!!! WHAT SORCERY IS THIS!!!! Iowa.

Back in Des Moines, we meet Farmer's three best friends, who look like they enjoy cigars and racism.  They're out at some bar and fuck, after Arlington, Des Moines looks like the Lower East Side.  Baby Voice wants to talk about her "family dynamic" which is that her Mom's dead and she isn't in contact with her Dad.  That's sad!  Maybe he got eaten by zombies in Arlington.  She's looking for someone with great parents because she doesn't have any and wants some!  Back off, lady!  I'm still using these ones!

Jade can no longer carry the weight of her Dark Secret and decides to unburden herself to Carly's Eyebrows.  She did some nude modeling for Playboy!  BFD, Jade.  Playboy is tamer than Chuck E Cheese.  Call me when you do Hustler or your name is an autofill on Redtube.

Group date with Britt, Carly's Eyebrows, and Kaitlyn.  There's about 10 seconds of ice skating and then Britt tells Farmer with a straight face that she "felt alive" in Arlington which I guess so because you were literally the only person there.  Carly's Eyebrows ain't having it and she blows Britt up to Farmer and tells him that Britt DID NOT FEEL ALIVE AT ALL in Arlington THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Later there's a lot of blah blah blah with Kaitlyn and Britt.  Britt is very upset about not being in First Place!  Kaitlyn nervously hides behind whiskey.  I like Kaitlyn.

It just ends.  No one gets kicked off.  Tonight it's on again.  It's the Most Dramatic Episode ever, probably.

The Bachelor: Badlands, or Worst Lands?

Was it just me, or was this episode boring as fuck?  I mean, we all put up with a lot to watch this shit, but this one really seemed to drag for some reason.  Anyway, we pick up in media res with The Widow Kelsey collapsed on the floor, suffering from a seemingly fatal case of crazy bitch.  Medics (Australian, I think - is there some reason why every reality show is contractually obligated to use Australian medics?) huddle around, trying to pump sane juice into her.  Sadly, she lives and returns to the Girl Cave cackling madly and talking about brownies.

So now we have a Rose Ceremony up top!  It's like going through a car wash backwards.  Teen Mom and Who The Fuck Is Samantha are out.  Samantha, we hardly knew ye.  Good luck in your new location.

We have unquestionably run out of locations to visit because we're going to Deadwood, South Dakota.  Oh, for a Deadwood/Bachelor crossover so I can hear Al Swearingen telling Kaitlyn that the only motherfucking reason to live is to make sure that other fucking cocksucker dies.  ABC has also run out of hotel budget because the girls are staying in a Holiday Inn with a corrugated steel exterior that looks like it was just flown in from Guantanamo.

What a fucking dump.  Anyway, one on one date with Becca, who looks like she played softball in college and orders her lingerie from J. Crew.  Unbelievably, she says she's never ridden a horse.  That is a bunch of bullshit, Becca.  There's some outdoor shit and horseback riding and a campfire and I don't know how she's going to eat that kebab because she never fully opens her mouth.  Farmer hits her with his usual "Where do you see yourself in 5 years" question and she says "Heading up the entire East Coast region!"  Not really.  I don't know what she said but I'm sure it was boring.  They have a long sleep-inducing conversation about feelings and I can tell she's a virgin because she wants 4-6 kids.

Group date!  These fillies are going to write some country music, aided by a park bench hobo and a carpet salesman wearing a cowboy hat.

Oh, it's famous country music people Big & Rich.  I like the bum looking one, he seems like he's drunk the whole time.  There's a lot of nothing and then Farmer gets up to sing.  He sounds like a Downs kid doing karaoke.  Of course Cruise Ship Carly sees this as her *BIG* *MOMENT* and does a full single spotlight ballad.  Then her eyebrows leap off and perform "La Cucaracha" to a mostly disinterested room.

Day turns to night and we're still hanging around this bar.  Just between you and me, Deadwood appears to be such a fucking tourist hole it makes Myrtle Beach look like Brussels.  Jade says she can see herself being in Iowa but she's from LA and she's thinking Field of Dreams instead of existential boredom and corn.  Farmer grabs SparklyBritt and they run off to a Big & Rich show, which is Britt's "virgin country music experience" like she's just desperate to have something virgin about her.  There's some rose thing and B&R play their carefully calibrated corporate rock/country.  They're like Kid Rock without the edge.  When they go back to the rest of the chix, everyone is SO MAD.  At least Baby Voice manages to squeak out that she's "here for the right reasons," so it's not a total loss.

Let's get to tonight's Main Event, the Widow Kelsey vs. Virgin I Cage Match of Death!!!!!!!  Everyone hops into a helicopter and flies over Mount Rushmore.  Virgin "literally with this can't even" and that might be the most coherent thing she's said so far.  Anyway, they land in some Badlands where there just happens to be a canopy bed and the whole thing looks like a Pink Floyd album cover.  Virgin puts Kels on blast and tells Farmer how everyone just hates her so much.  Natch Farmer immediately snitches her out to Kels, who sadly doesn't kill the Virgin.  Everyone cries.  Virgin would be a good match for anyone looking for an emotional Costa Concordia who needs psychiatric treatment if she gets a raspberry filling chocolate from the See's candy mix.  In the smartest move of the season, Farmer kicks them both off and that's it for this week.

Next week we're probably going to Bloomington Indiana, the way things are going so far.

New Bar Night: Patriot House, Hopwater

I love Bar Rescue, and I had heard that they were in town a while back trolling for a Bar to Rescue.  (Hilariously, they tried to hit up Shotwell's, which is doing just fine, TYVM.)  So when I learned courtesy of Inside Scoop that they had worked their magic on the Holding Company, you knew I would assemble a team to take a look.

If you worked anywhere around the Embarcadero Center from the 80's on, you probably had been to the Holding Company at some point, a featureless, fairly dark bar whose best days always seemed in the past and had such a ridiculous Gordon Gekko-type name that it just oozed Business Douche.

Anyway, Jon Taffer et al. presumably arrived and transformed the space into something much more current, much more San Francisco-centric, like....

Patriot House.  What the fuck.

That's right, the colonial Founding Fathers-themed bar you didn't know you wanted.  I can't figure out what the fuck motivated the Bar Rescue team to go all Paul Revere on Embarcadero 2, but I guess we'll find out in April when the episode airs.  Stephen has his theories:

@40goingon28 @periqueblend "We planned on using this menu in exurban Boston, but never got around to it."
— Stephen (@EamesEra) January 22, 2015

Makes as much sense as anything else, I guess.

We got there around 5:45 on a Friday and it was SLAMMED, although I would venture a guess that even bad old Holding Company would be slammed at 5:45 on a Friday.  It's still dark and hotel-bar-looking, but with more patriotic geegaws and portraits of Madison and crap.  It took forever to get a drink, but we finally did.

I had the "Taft's Crowd Pleaser" with gin, lemon juice, orgeat, orange flower water, and grated nutmeg.  I think the lemon and the orange flower water didn't like each other because it tasted like an undifferentiated glass of sweet.  Olu had the "Blue Whiskey Van" with Dickel white corn whiskey, lemon juice, and blue curacao.  It looked like it would be the perfect drink for a Continental Congress Sping Break Ba$h but Olu said he liked it.  It tasted like a Sweet Tart to me.  We switched to beer.

The menu's here; we got the sliders and the nachos, which both had calories.  Olu pointed out that they missed a big opportunity by not trying to tie ALL the food descriptions to historical figures.  Not sure what Franklin Pierce had to do with smashed potatoes, but they really missed the boat by not going with the "General Antonio López de Santa Anna Nachos."

The crowd was off-the-shelf Fleece N Checked Shirt.  At one point there was a group of 6 guys waiting  for a table all wearing black North Face and with the same haircut and how do you guys even tell each other apart?  We finally flagged someone down for the check and booked.

Then we took a cab up to Nob Hill and went to Hopwater Distribution, one of two beer bars in the Union Square area that recently opened and appear to be so close in concept and name there is no way not to get them confused.  (The other is apparently called Hogwash and is 2 blocks away and its Facebook page is full of grinning blondes and dudes holding up big beers WHOOOOO.)  Anyway, Hopwater was also jam-packed (again, Friday, duh) with another crowd of young thinkfluencers.  Seriously, the M-F ratio must have been like 10:1.  There was nowhere to stand and everyone was braying about apps.  "The one good thing about this bar is that it smells like french fries," Alissa said.  We had one beer and went across the the street to The Summer Place, which was ALSO unaccountably packed. Maybe I'm getting too old for this shit.  The end.

The Bachelor: Isn't my hair amazing? I mean my story. Isn't my story amazing.

Good morning, fellow farmers!  We have arrived in Santa Fe, because over 20 seasons we've now exhausted all the real cities and are bottom of the barreling it in New Mexico.  But it's good news for Megan the Simple, who's "never been out of the country!"  Oh, Megan.  Here, I got these blocks for you.  Anyway, we're staying at the picturesque Buffalo Thunder Casino, which looks like when Pier 1 went through their Southwest phase.  Also, what the fucking fuck, Buffalo Thunder?

Buffalo Thunder has obviously never been to a casino, because alcoholic beverages on the casino floor is basically the RAISON FUCKING D'ETRE of casinoing.  How the fuck you gonna keep car dealership finance managers playing $10 blackjack without watered down G&Ts?

Anyway.  Solo date with Carly, the "cruise ship singer" who is about as sexy as Dora the Explorer.  They go to some house and there's a transient camped out by the pool and instead of shooing her away with a broom they sit down to whatever the fuck this is:

I guess the T is silent probably.  There's some sage burning and mystical shit and then it's time to GET FUCKING BUCK which sucks for Carly because she's "terrified of physical intimacy."  Not a good look for the fantasy suite, Carly!  There's some Conscious Disrobing like it's My First Porn Shoot and then breathing into each other's mouths and I hope nobody got the garlic schmear for breakfast.

The Night Portion is basically just champagne in a hotel room because ABC has given up on dinner.  Oh, here's Carly's story.  Her last BF wouldn't touch her!  Wait, was he a "cruise ship singer" too?  Because I may know why, Carly.  Farmer nods a lot and thinks Carly is "cool and smart," which is how you might describe your second favorite sibling.  Then some closed mouth kissing which probably feels like a Wesson oil orgy on ecstasy to Carly.  Poor Carly.

Today's Group Date is whitewater rafting, which looks more like brownwater rafting to me.  Too bad Jillian's not here to carry the boats downriver in her teeth!  The first time water splashes into the raft Jade falls out and she has a "condition" where her "body goes into hypothermia at like normal temperatures it shouldn't."  WebMD says this is definitely CANCER, Jade, so you are fucked.

The sun has set.  Jade's "condition" has rendered her a vegetable who can only blink her lame attempts at flirting.  BUT WAIT WHO'S THIS?  Our favorite tequila receptacle, Jordan!  She's somehow sobered up but not enough to put on makeup.  She wants back in!  HELL YEAH THERE'S BOOZE LEFT.  Now J's drinking lemon water and not making any friends.  After consulting with the chix, Farmer says nope to Jordan.  You'll have to buy your own drinks now, Jordan.  Also, Jordan claims to be 24?  Not a fucking chance, sweetie.

Meanwhile Carly tells us that Sparkle Princess Britt hasn't been showering?  Maybe that explains the dreadlog on her head.

Farmer comes to wake her up at 4:30 but she's wearing full makeup despite smelling like the 24 Hour Fitness on Van Ness.  They're going hot air ballooning and Britt seems to have already forgotten her fear of heights, because sadly she doesn't freak out or have seizures.  It's beautiful and magical and Britt wants "a hundred kids" so maybe's she's a chinchilla.  Same size and build, anyway.

The Widow Kelsey has decided to tell her story!  She reveals that she was married to Sanderson Poe, which was apparently a person and not a law firm, who died of heart something, maybe "congestive heart failure"?  She can't really remember.  The whole thing seems a little made up, actually.  Maybe she's totally Gone Girling this.  Oh wait, spoiler.  She does actually say "Isn't my story amazing?" which is great because it's a good way to tell if someone is a psychopath.

Shit is getting fucking REAL now because Farmer's too emotional for the Cocktail Party and sends Chris Harrison in to tell the chix his mind is made up and we'll just go straight to the Rose Ceremony.  For some inexplicable reason, this causes The Widow Kelsey to collapse in the hallway.

NEXT WEEK: We'll find out if "congestive heart failure" is contagious.

The Bachelor: Give me your crazy, your drunk, your huddled simpletons yearning to read

Before we can get started on our dates this week there's some garbage time about how Yoga Kimberly who got kicked off last week wants to get back on and OH WHATEVER SHALL WE DO and brows are furrowed and eventually Kimberly is readmitted into the pack and the other chicks look at her like she's Al Sharpton at a Klan rally.  IN ANOTHER BIT OF SHOCKING NEWS we are informed that Farmer Chris's bachleor pad is not on some distant isle but LO, JUST AT THE END OF THE DRIVEWAY.  Whatever.

Group Date with some of them give me a break it's too early to learn all their names yet.  The Scream of Chicks reports to what appears to be a faceless office building in LA but is actually 1010 Wilshire, "a new lifestyle solution for professionals wanting to live, work, and play" which sounds like it could be anything from a nutritional supplement to an app but is actually rental units with you guessed it a rooftop pool.  Based on what I know from the Bachelor, every building in LA is equipped with a rooftop pool and a set of stemless wineglasses.
Meanwhile, back at the Female Farm, the News Producer who has apparently decided to produce herself out of bikini bottoms forcing ABC to black box her private area and Megan the Simple with her Life Helmet on have decided to burgle Chris's quarters.

We return to the Group Date where the next event, inevitably, is Bikini Tractor Racing, which I think Tara does professionally.

Periodic reminder that I love Tara.  Her tagline is "Sport Fishing Enthusiast" which is code for something dirty or illegal but I haven't figured it out yet.  Anyway, the producers have fixed the tractors so they can only go 3 mph to make a sad commentary on the state of the family farm.

Post tractoring C culls Kids Having Kids McKenzie or MacKenzie or whatever from the herd probably to take her for soft serve or to see Frozen.  Oh wait they're going to some bar called "The Escondite" which bills itself on its website as being in "SKIDROWKYO" in case you had the idea that SF had a monopoly on repellent neighborhood monikers.  Anyway, McK is a little crazy and nobody told her you don't bust out with "Do you believe in aliens" on the first date!

Solo date with Megan the Simple.

In the limo she says, no joke, "I just read the word airport" so GRAPE JOB MEGAN!!!!!  You get a treat.  They private jet to Vegas and then take the whirly stick machine up in the sky!  SECOND ACTUAL MEGAN QUOTE: "The butterflies in my stomach are just colorful and smiling and fluttering all over the place."  Jesus fucking Christ.  Anyway, they chopper to the Grand Canyon where Megan reveals that her Dad just had a heart attack and got brain damage but Mom told her to go on the show anyway!  C feels like "there is something here" but it's clearly not crossword puzzle answers or the ability to read a fast food menu.  Megan may be sweet but she is dumber than a roomful of mutes.

ANOTHER FUCKING GROUP DATE  with like 20 of them.  Apparently Zombie Paintball is a thing?  I don't know.  It's some fake movie set and the chix all wander around shooting people who have the Worst Job in America with paintball guns.

OK, we have to talk about Brooklyn Ashley (who I mistakenly said was kicked off last week) because it's very sad.  Either she ate a ton of fucking mushrooms right before this or had a mental break on camera because she spent most of the segment wandering aimlessly around the set and saying things like "Boom, go find your own way, you know, the truth" and "Are we in Mesa Verde?" Then she sat down to talk to the cat.  Seriously, what the fucking fuck.  Some other shit happened I guess but this conflagration of crazy kind of stole the show.  YOU DO YOU BROOKLYN ASHLEY.

Let's jump to the Cocktail Party.  Hopefully Ashley's cocktail is Risperdal and Thorazine.  Some Other Ashley comes out as a virgin to Teen Mom who opines that "Guys like taking your virginity!" in such a disturbingly perky way that makes me think there might be more than one dude who thinks he deflowered McKenzie. Armed with this insider info Ashley the Virgin approaches C and engages in some kind of bizarre belly ring ceremony that ultimately results in them slapping their faces together like fur seals.  Later, Possibly Black Amber also gets in on the face sucking which drives Drunk Jordan into a drunken drunk furor.

I'm loving all the drunks this season!  Anyway, Drunk Jordan advances on C and starts yelling nonsensically at him like they're in a college sports bar and Guns N Roses is blasting.  She is literally just stringing random words together.  LOVE YA JORD.

Let's hand out some roses.  Britt, duh, the Virgin, Who the Fuck Is Trina, the Widow Kelsey, SaMANtha, Surprise Also a Widow Juealia or however it's spelled, Possibly Black Amber, Tracey or Tracy, Jillian, Jade, Nicki or Mickey or something, Becka, Carly, Baby Voice, and YAY KRAZEE ASHLEY!!!!

As much as I long to see Ashley get dosed again, my heart is heavy, for C has excused Team Highball!  Oh man, no, no, NOT TARA!!!!  You did not just cut Tara.  Fuck you, Chris. We're losing Tara AND Jordan?  Me and Don Julio both weep for our bleak future.

The Bachelor: Farmer in the Gel

One circle of Hell probably looks like a featureless, sunbaked street in Los Angeles County where a semiautonomous organism waves a "I [heart" Chris" sign that someone has handed her because that's where we're starting out this season.  HI EVERYONE I'M WATCHING THE BACHELOR AGAIN because I have so much love to give. Apparently the first hour of the show is going to feature helicopterloads of prior contestants in some kind of faux Academy Awards red carpet show except with disease vectors instead of actors and lowered expectations instead of statuettes.

LET'S MEET OUR BACHELOR whom Chris Harrison gaggingly refers to as "Prince Farming" when Field of Screams or Plower Bouquet or Bodily Farm was available.  Chris the Farm Man is proud to "feed the world" which means putting high fructose corn syrup into M&Ms.  He wants what his parents and sisters have, which appears to be livestock with numbered tags in their ears.  Since he has exhausted the romantic possibilities in Arlington Iowa, he feels that "this is the best way to find love," which means he has never heard of FarmersOnly.com.  Chris dons a comically oversized motorcycle helmet and heads west to meet some emtpyheaded hair product support systems.

Back at the Oscars of Desperation, Chris Harrison is doing red carpet interviews with people I have only a vague memory of, while in the background cavort others we longed to forget like Droopy Face and Too Much Product and Who the Fuck Is She Again.

Let's bounce and meet some chicks.  Britt is a waitress in Hollywood and looks like an Olsen twin on a crash diet in a concentration camp.  There is a not zero chance she's done coke with James Woods.  Amanda is a ballet instructor with Keane painting eyes and a legitimately krazee vibe. Whitney is a "fertility nurse" who has found the perfect job for someone with the voice of a toddler.  She longs to be fertilized as well!  Kelsey is an exotic-looking widow in Austin whose husband's heart just stopped one day!  If he was walking in Austin anytime between May and September I can understand.

Cut to the Red Carpet where there is a Nixon-Frost length interview with Nikki about Juan Pablo and her life and anything else in the entire universe.  Gotta put something in between yogurt commercials, I guess.

After an hour of bullshit and the Nikki Documentary, we're finally ready to get started.  Following establishing shots of Chris trying on clothes for the first time ever and gettin his visage fixed with the pitcher machine, we're ready to start unloading the Cattle Cars.  Out pops Britt who latches onto C like he's a kidney donor and she can't process waste.  The Widow Kelsey claims to be "just a regular girl" but she's on this show so I'm not 100% sure about that. I was starting to think we were going to largely avoid Gimmick Intros when Human Tissue Salesgirl Reegan arrives with a biohazard container full of what she says is a human heart but is probably just human lungs or a spleen.  Lame.

THEN THERE'S TARA.  I kinda love Tara.  She hops out in a Sexy Farmgirl Halloween costume with cowboy boots and Daisy Dukes and proceeds straight to the bar and orders a Jameson.  SWOON.  Then for some reason she changes into a cocktail dress and gets out of the limo again? Not sure why, but we get to see her killer White Trash Tatt:

It's kind of hard to read but I think it says either "LOVE IS PEE * BRIDE OF RESIN" or "FINE BY ME * WHISKEY & GINGER."

More chicks.  Amanda takes her bipolar and goes flying by. Hairstylist Ashley says she's 24 but maybe means she's been a hairstylist for 24 years?  I know Kaitlyn With a K is probably getting all the press for telling C "You can plow the fuck out of my field any day" but that's the Space Pants of farmer pickup lines. So played.

The ladies are at Cuban Missile Crisis levels of concern because THERE ARE ONLY 15 OF THEM.  No one can process this world-shatteringly bizarre turn of events.  OH WAIT IT'S CATTLE CAR ROUND 2.  The First 15, now in various stages of intoxication, peer from behind the blinds as Wedding Cake Decorator and Tandra on the Motorcycle and Nicole Who Is Wearing a Pig Nose Not As a Statement on Society But For Other Inscrutable Reasons arrive.  Karas and Jades and various other dubiously-employed lifeforms emerge.  There are 30 women now!  Or as DiCaprio calls it, Tuesday.

FINALLY, we are at the Cocktail Party, i.e. Lord of the Flies Sponsored by Sephora.  C passes haplessly from Plus Size Model to Fourth Grade Teacher like a speed dating tetherball.  My two fave drunks are Ashley from Brooklyn (not that Brooklyn, though - no full sleeves or dumb hat or boring anecdote about her solo show) and of course Tara, who winningly says she "cares for that kid," hopefully meaning C and not an actual child because Tara should not involved in any child care scenario. Human Teeth Whitener Britt gets the First Impression Rose, raising the combined IQ of her and the plant to 80.  JUMP CUT back to the Live Show where Famous Loser Michelle Money meows "I heard she doesn't shower" about Britt. What the fuck Michelle.

ROSE CEREMONY.  God, they better not do these fucking 3 hour shows every time. I'm barely keeping track at this point.  Who's staying? Kaitlyn, Jade, Poor Man's Mischa Barton With Black Hair, The Widow Kelsey, Megan the Simple.  Meanwhile Drunk Tara is hanging on like Just Standing There is a roadside DUI test.  It's touch and go about whether she's gonna end up on the floor before this is over but YAY she gets a rose.  Sadly, Ashley from Brooklyn does not.  There are other roses given and withheld.

Meanwhile, Tara has confused her rose for Domino's and is going house on it.

My only wish for this season is a long run for Tara and a high enough Jameson budget to make it worthwhile.  *winks* Love ya girl.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "I went to school for sports broadcast news but now I sell cadaver tissue."  Has there ever been a better metaphor for life?