This conversation I had kinda bummed me out

I had to take our car into the shop last week and I had a conversation with the owner I've been thinking about ever since.  Because cars are mysterious and temperamental creatures, I had to take it to a different place than we usually go to.  Anyway, the owner - super nice guy BTW - was taking my info and when I told him my address he said "Oh, I grew up like two blocks from there."

"No kidding," I said.  "Where do you live now?"

"Over by Lake Merced," he said.  Then he said the interesting slash depressing thing I've been thinking about ever since.

"But we're looking to move," he said.  "This city's getting crazy."  I nodded like I knew what he meant, although he could have meant any number of things.  Then he said, "Amd we've got a kid now and we can't send him to San Francisco schools."

I didn't really ask for clarification because, hey, he's a guy working on my car and we're not here to debate the merits of San Francisco schools but MAN IS THAT DEPRESSING.  I have a kid who's going to be going to school in a couple of years and it never occurred to me to just dismiss SF public schools out of hand like that.  I mean, we fully intend to do the whole lottery thing and whatever and see what happens.  (I assume he meant "San Francisco public schools" when he said "San Francisco schools" but who knows, maybe he just can't conceive of his kid attending any school in the city limits in which case never mind.)

It occurs to me that this attitude might be more prevalent among SF natives like this guy than with people who have moved here in the last, say, 26 years like me?  From what I understand, SF public schools used to be worse and have been improving greatly over the past few years, so maybe that's it?

This picture has nothing to do with this story except it's a cool picture of San Francisco. From some astronaut's Twitter, I think. 

The second depressing aspect of this brief exchange - and yes, I can manage to extract two depressing points out of a 20-second conversation - is that this is the kind of guy San Francisco desperately needs and can no longer keep.  A regular, middle-class guy who runs a local business and is raising a family in the city and isn't trying to commodify parking spaces or figure out yet another way to get food from a restaurant to your door.  I feel like we're losing the Normal Guy demographic and that's a vital part of this city or any city.

(Again, I'm making some assumptions here based on the fact that it's a guy who owns an auto repair shop and lives out by Lake Merced.  Maybe he's actually a billionaire who created Repair.io the auto repair app but I didn't get that vibe.)

That's about it.

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.

Here's what they don't tell you in parenting class

On the occasion of Beyonce's third birthday, here's what I've learned about having a kid, so far, in part.

1. They start out eating just one thing, then will pretty much eat anything, then go back down to one or two things.

They start off with milk (and formula too, which is totally fine despite what militant breastfeeding types will tell you).  Then she started eating pretty much everything we were eating.  Her first two words after "Mama" were "bus" and "tortilla," if that gives you any clue.  I think her first favorite food was pad thai, which she'll still eat on occasion.  I never even heard of pad thai until I was like 23.  Then as she got a little older she got pickier.  No more broccoli.  No more corn.  Mostly mac and cheese.  She loves mac and cheese like teenage girls love One Direction.  I'm exaggerating about only liking one or two things, but she definitely won't eat the rainbow any more. Luckily she still likes fruit.

2. "It goes by so fast" is bullshit.

The biggest lie the baby-industrial complex has ever foisted on the American public is that "time just flies, you'll wake up one day and she's off to college."  Total crap,  She just turned 3 and it seems like it's been about 6 years.  I don't even remember her not being here.  DON'T GET ME WRONG I love her to death and wouldn't have it any other way but she gets up by 6:45 am at the latest every day and basically never stops talking.  It's kinda exhausting.  Time does not fly under those conditions.

3. Kids are kind of hilarious

Yesterday morning she wanted me to sing "Happy Birthday" to her so I did.  Then she had her sunglasses sing "Happy Birthday" to me in a funny voice even though it wasn't my birthday and her sunglasses are not sentient creatures as far as I know.  Shit like that cracks me up.  She also got "actually" from another kid at preschool and now says "actually" all the time like she's #notallmen on Twitter.  "Actually I would rather have cereal."  OK then.

4. Kids have the emotional response of Britney Spears that day she shaved her head

Sometimes they just lose their fucking shit for no reason.  We have literally asked her "Why are you crying right now?" and she's said "I don't know why I'm crying! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!"  One second she'll be happy and totally chill and then she gets the bad news that we're not having cupcakes for breakfast and WHAM total fucking meltdown.  I know it's all a totally normal developmental stage blah blah blah fine but just get a Livejournal already and let it out there.

5. TV is your secret weapon. Use it but don't abuse it.

There are parents who say "We don't allow our kids to watch TV." They are lying.  Sometimes you really just need 30 minutes to put some laundry in or stare blankly into middle distance and there is nothing wrong with letting Dora co-parent for a spell.  We keep a lid on it and don't just park her in front of the screen for hours on end but I firmly believe there is nothing wrong with catching some shows.

6. Overall, it's great

Big picture?  So far it's pretty great.  We're probably on the lucky end because apart from a few tantrums here and there, our kid is pretty chill and goes to bed without any trouble pretty much every night and is usually down for whatever, but on the whole, yeah, it's great.

Happy Birthday, kid.

Wait, I want to have an I'm Leaving San Francisco Letter too

Please post it on the Bold Italic.

(I'm not actually leaving San Francisco. I'm just scared I'll miss out and won't be able to contribute to the I'm Leaving San Francisco Letter genre)

I can still remember the day I set foot in San Francisco.  The air was aglow and the fog tasted sweet, like simple syrup.  Every day I would walk to work from my huge apartment in North Beach that cost $124 a month to my very cool job doing something creative with a lot of cool people who were also cool and unusual.  Then we would go to underground dance fashion raves in SOMA before there were offices there or before people called it SOMA until 4 am and then be fine at work the next day because the very spirit of San Francisco would keep you invigorated.

It’s different now, of course; it’s not My San Francisco any more.  I guess it started when the Thorvites emerged from the sea and began eating large sections of the Sunset, their gaping, blood-soaked jaws full of pavement and stucco and hapless dog walkers.  Of course, incinerating Golden Gate Park with thermite and napalm temporarily halted their shrieking march across the city, but at what cost?  The new Golden Gate Parking Lot is convenient but I miss the trees.  Am I being selfish, though, I wonder.  What makes the old SF any better than the new one?

There were the little changes, things that seemed small but then started to add up.  The coffee place down the street, where the owner, Rose still made delicious lattes and served heavenly muffins straight from her own oven, closed suddenly and was replaced by a Physical Form Transmutation Center, another one of those places where you’d go to have your molecular matrix disassembled and transmitted to a pulsar of pure energy.  There’s probably one in your neighborhood too.  It’s like they’re taking over!  They're like the Chase banks of physical transmutation places.  And I knew the cobbler shop probably wouldn’t last, but I was more than a little taken aback when it closed and reopened as an Alien Assimilation Center.  I know our new overlords are mighty; I guess I didn’t expect them to be so pushy, too!

I sigh and try to remember that change is inevitable.  The Mission was an Irish neighborhood once, then Hispanic.  Now it’s Biomutant.  From “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” to “Oye Como Va” to “Feast on the Skulls of the Screaming Ones, For We Are the Damned of the Night.”  All good songs, just different voices.  Change.  In 30 years, the Biomutants will be the ones getting pushed out, and they’ll probably complain about how the Drillbots have ruined the neighborhood by drilling holes in everything and driving right over the intricate temples of human bones the Biomutants spent so long assembling.  “I remember when this was a cool neighborhood, before the Drillbots messed everything up,” they’ll whine, in between bites of a child’s forearm.  It’s inevitable.

The last straw was when Gozor and his Reptile Clan won the Battle of Potrero Hill and slaughtered the last of the Golden Cadre.  The streets had barely stopped running thick and red with clotted blood when I came home to find a 3-day Notice tacked to my door.  Gozor was Ellis Acting me out.  A quick look at Craigslist and I knew my time in San Francisco was over.  I’d had some pretty sketchy apartments here, but $3000 a month for a muddy Hellpit dug in the sandy soil and covered with a bamboo lattice seemed a little ridiculous.  Especially since I also had to share a cooking fire with Jaku the Forgotten One, who honestly did not look like he kept a clean kitchen.

So farewell, San Francisco!  I shall remember you as you were, that beautiful, charming, grey City of Wonder, and not like now, just another backwards province in the Borakkian Empire.  I hear Portland is still not overrun; maybe I’ll try there next.

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.

The world according to kid

WARNING: Content may be construed as daddy-blogging.  Enjoy or avoid as your preference may be.

This is our kid.  She's about 2 1/2 years old now.  She's like a little person now.  I mean, she was a little person the whole time, but when they're like 6 months old they're basically just a blob you put food into and remove waste from the outside of, and now she is starting to get independent and talks in roughly complete sentences and has LOTS OF OPINIONS ABOUT THINGS.  Maybe they will interest you.  Maybe they won't.  The Wife is out of town for a while here and I'm putting these here for her benefit just as much as yours.

On Food

"This tastes like orange" (eating an orange)

"This tastes like a pouch" (eating a pouch)

(After hearing what we're having for dinner) "Oh, that sounds really delicious"

"I want juice and milk in the same cup."  (Ew, no.)

On Familial Relationships

(Apropos of nothing, to me) "I'm your daughter."

"Mama's a big daughter"

(To every other guy boarding the N Judah) "That's not my dada."

(One guy said "No it is not," with a sense of relief? Or something?)

Misc.

(After I tickled her) "You need to calm down." (Pause) "We both need to calm down."

Her: "Shit. Shit. Shit."

Me: "What are you saying?"

Her: "Shit. Shit. Shit the odor."

Me: (lightbulb going off) "Shrek?  Shrek the ogre?"

Her: "Yes. Shit the odor."

While driving the car

"I'm looking for a parking spot."

Obviously a San Franciscan.

As I alluded to on Twitter, the experience of solo parenting (day 5 of 10 today, yay) has imbued in me a newfound respect for single parents.  We're very lucky because she's a pretty easygoing kid and is usually great to be around, but still, sometimes you just want to hand them off and be like "Here, you deal with this for a while" and having someone else around makes that possible most of the time.  So hats off, single parents. 

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!)

Look upon the face of evil

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote the songs for "Frozen." If you have a child[*], these are who you can blame for having "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" stuck in your head for the last year.

[*] I don't have a male child, so I don't know if Frozmania is gender-nonspecific, but as far as I've heard, it seems to be at least a girl-centric phenomenon.  The protagonists are both girls, then young women, and the men in the film tend to be either lovable goofs or duplicitous schemers.  Maybe that's why.

You may not probably don't know this, but Robert Lopez also co-wrote The Book of Mormon, a fairly overrated but somewhat enjoyable musical better known as a creation of the South Park dudes.  The only thing Frozen and The Book of Mormon have in common are the fact that they both involve musical notes.

It is also claimed that Robert is an EGOT winner (i.e., Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony), but he won a Daytime Emmy, which I think you can win just by wathcing enough episodes of Judge Judy.  I might have won a Daytime Emmy and the notification is stuck in my spam folder.  Until he wins a Real Emmy, his EGOT comes with an asetrisk.

Anyway, those of you without kids may be wondering what I'm going on about because you don't have to listen to the Frozen soundtrack - or, indeed, watch the Disney film of the same name - over and over and over and over.  I don't know what it is about that movie but our 2-year-old is absolutely entranced.  It's basically the only thing she will sit still and watch all the way through which is actually kind of nice when you're home and need to unload the dishwasher.  What's not so great is how we have to listen to "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" and "Let It Go" EVERY SINGLE MORNING in the car on the way to day care.

I guess I'm kind of glad she isn't that crazy about Olaf's song any more, because I actually kind of like it and it hasn't been ruined by being forced to hear it 250 times.




Not bad, huh? If that really is Josh Gad singing, he's pretty good at singing!

There's no real point to this post.  I'm just sick of the Frozen soundtrack and needed to let it out.  The other day I had this realization, and the actual words as they formed in my head were "Blogging is just about seeking and sometimes obtaining validation."  This is so blindingly self-evident that I felt bad for even thinking it.  So this post, I guess, like every other post, is a naked attempt to get validation, in this case for the relatively uncontroversial position that kids like Frozen and the soundtrack is wearing me down.

Here's what I have to look forward to, I guess.  These are movies I have never seen but expect to see a lot of, soon:

The Lion King
The Little Mermaid
Beauty and the Beast
Any of the Cars movies
Aladdin
Pocahontas
That one that looks like it's set in New Orleans that I can't remember the name of

I hope I never have to watch Up again.  That was a total snooze.

What SF landmark will we lose next?

It seems like not a week goes by without some announcement that a treasured San Francisco institution is closing its doors forever.  Just yesterday, we found out we're losing Capp's Corner, a North Beach institution for like 50 years, and the Orbit Room, a mid-Market bar that I went to once in like 1993 and thought was just OK.  But still!

[BRIEF DIVERSION: It really sucks about Capp's, an old-school family-style Italian place with huge buckets of linguine and red wine in water glasses and shit like that.  Totally sad, but it actually wasn't as good as Gold Spike, which closed years ago.  Still miss you, Gold Spike.]

With all these changes, WHAT'S NEXT?  

Tadich Grill

Is it the oldest restaurant in San Francisco?  Maybe!  Known primarily for angry waiters and sand dabs, this crusty old place is just begging for a makeover.

WHAT'S REPLACING IT: Spūn, a minimalist Peruvian-Roman small plates macaroni and cheese fusion restaurant.

Spec's

Undoubtedly one of the best bars in San Francisco, at least on weeknights.  No frills, just booze and cheese.  What a bar should be.

WHAT'S REPLACING IT: Bird & Another Bird, a craft cocktail bar specializing in Midori.

Tosca

Another old-school eccentric institution with no-nonsense drinks and a opera-heavy jukebox.

WHAT'S REPLACING IT: Tosca, a fantastically overrated nouveau Italian joint with $42 chicken.   Oh shit, wait.

The Legion of Honor

A resplendent neoclassical museum in a gorgeous setting with a so-so collection of mostly European art.

WHAT'S REPLACING IT: It will be the new home of Yelp co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman.

Golden Gate Park Carousel

Since 1914, this carousel has entertained generations of kids who think going around in a circle for about two minutes is fun.

WHAT'S REPLACING IT: The Spinninizer, an interactive Xtreme Xperience that uses space-age technology to spin kids around at over 300 miles per hour with only a 20% chance of death!!!!!!!

The Transamerica Pyramid

An iconic part of the San Francisco skyline, this instantly recognizable tower is what many people think of first when they think of the city.

WHAT'S REPLACING IT: A Chipotle.

Rain

A regular winter feature of San Francisco for thousands of years, this airborne hydration method has appeared in such films as "Vertigo" and "Basic Instinct."

WHAT'S REPLACING IT: Searing, unending drought.  Almonds.

Mayor Ed Lee

A comically ineffectual figurehead installed to do the bidding of Evil Overlord Ron Conway, a Bond movie-type villain who somewhat-secretly controls everything.

WHAT'S REPLACING IT: Mayr, an app that brings government to your door, usually in less than 30 minutes.  TRY MAYR.

What are we all doing for New Year's Eve 20 Years Ago?

Welcome to another installment of It Was 20 Years Ago Today, in which we bore readers in a very specific way: by looking at old newspapers and finding out what was going on 20 years ago.

HEY HOW ABOUT NEW YEAR'S EVE 1994???!!??

I know it's not today, but close enough.  I have here ads I carefully copied from the December 28, 1994 SF Weekly.  We're all 20 years younger!  Let's go do something tonight, for Chrissakes.  The Internet hasn't really taken off yet so we can't stay home and post cat pictures on the Tumbeler.  Let's go have some FUN.

What's going on at Paradise Lounge?

The Loved Ones was local fave Bart Davenport's old band.  I don't think I ever saw them.  The Broun Fellinis might even still be around.

Over at Great American, we've got a "Cajun New Years Eve" f/ Beausoleil.  I don't know what the draw of a Cajun NYE in SF is but whatever.  Also look at the night before, with Cake last on the bill in tiny print. Sadly, they would go on to much bigger type.

The Cramps at the Fillmore.  I think the Public Enemy show a few nights earlier would be about 1000 times more interesting.

Finally, we have something called "Mr. Jenkins' Big Block Party" at Embarcadero Center.  I have no idea who Mr. Jenkins is, but the lineup is kind of incredible.

The Brothers Doobie and Neville on the main stage.  And look at the "Big Bang Alternative Stage," with Cracker and the Meat Puppets!  (Also Engine, who later became Engine 88 and put out a great album called "Clean Your Room."  Here's a video of them performing the song "Pelican" at the 1995 Haight Street Fair.  I was actually in the audience at this very performance, back when the idea of going to a street fair didn't give me full body wretching.  Plus I lived right off Haight at the time.  Here's a studio version of another song, "Des Moines," with much better sound.  Now I have gone down the Engine 88 rabbit hole.  Anyway.)

$65 for Mr. Jenkins' Big Block Party.  That seems a bit steep, Doobie Brothers or not.

When it's all said and done, I think I would have been just fine going to the late, great 20 Tank Brewery's NYE party, where $15 includes a reserved table and a round of beer & pizza.  20 Tank was great.

Why things are not going to work out for Buzzfeed and me

Famous web site Buzzfeed is looking to hire a "Staff Writer, San Francisco."  Since I already staff write just for fun and enjoy lazily daydreaming about leaving the choking conformist corporate culture of my current job I decided to see if I'd be a likely candidate to staff write for Buzzfeed.  No, it turns out, I would not.

First, I am over 25 and have a decent haircut, and it says right there on the site "NOTICE: WE DO NOT HIRE ANYONE OVER 25 OR ANYONE WITH A NORMAL HAIRCUT."

Here are the "Responsibilities" meaning what I would be doing during the time I'm not looking at other, better web sites.

I could do this!  As long as I don't have to ever, ever say "tech/startup space" out loud.  Blech.  Blech.  I like contributing to the conversation about culture and I try to do that every day.

Here we have requirements, which is the part I like to call "WHY I WON'T BE HIRED TO BE STAFF WRITER FOR BUZZFEED"

You see that Buzzfeed is so fucking TERRIFIED of haters that they had to put in "No haters" TWICE, once with an exclamation point!  NO!  HATERS!

Well, on behalf of me and other haters, fuck you, Buzzfeed.  You won't silence us!

(Also, BUZZ FEED, I have to check the manual but I think "18 Times Paris Hilton Committed Gloriously Bad Crimes Against Fashion" is the work of a HATER so you may yet have haters on staff!  Commence your purge of haters AT ONCE!!!)

Let's see what else.  I'm not 100% sure what emotional intelligence is but I probably have that.  I have the ability, but not the willingness, to take the perspective of others, so I'm good there.  My dog had a "positive, curious, playful disposition" but I couldn't say I do.

Ok then. This has been 17 Great Reasons Why I Won't Get a Job at Buzzfeed.

World Series game 7: Damn.

On July 29, the Giants lost to the Pirates 3-1.  It was their sixth straight loss.  Dan Uggla went 0 for 3 and struck out twice.  Dan Uggla, ladies and gentlemen.

Everybody said "THESE GUYS ARE GOING TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!! THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!!!! GET ME SOME OF THAT GIANTS BRANDED CHAMPAGNE AND LET'S POP IT NOW!!!!"

No, nobody said that.  Everybody said this team sucks.

Today, Dan Uggla is sitting in a man cave somewhere looking down at his hand and picturing a World Series ring on it.

It is hard to describe how improbable this whole thing is.  On October 1, me and a friend agreed that it would just be better to lose the wild card play-in against the Pirates than have to endure the grim reality of getting ground up in the playoffs.  The Giants winning the World Series this year is like Matt Damon just hanging around Boston and sticking with his construction job at the end of Good Will Hunting.

So after getting genocided 10-0 on Tuesday night, things did not look good.  The Giants were sending out Tim Hudson, a retiree from Georgia who broke into the big leagues before players used mitts and has a postseason record of 0-132.  Tim Hudson managed to carry the ball to the plate for about an inning and a half.  Thanks, Tim.  You can hit the early bird now.

The Giants cobbled together a couple of runs in the top of the 2nd and then in the bottom of the 2nd Billy Butler, who I'm sure is a nice man with a good family, singled and then Alex Gordon doubled and then Omar Infante sac flied and Gordon scored and it was 2-2.  Jeremy Affledt came in and calmed shit down.  Now the Giants just needed a run.  HAVE NO FEAR, BRUCE BOCHY IS KISSING SOME BATS.

The side-eye is tremendous.

They got it in the 4th, a Morse single that scored Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval.  3-2.  NOW WHO SHOULD PROTECT THAT LEAD.

Everybody knew what was about to happen.  Madison Bumgarner was coming in.  Based on what I understand, Madison Bumgarner grew up in a log cabin HE BUILT WITH HIS OWN HANDS AS AN INFANT and invented cows.  He is as strong as rhinoceros on androstenedione and as calm and placid as a 37th-level yogi.  Despite having already pitched in 2 other games, he came into this one on 2 days rest and threw 5 innings.  Poor Royals.

Afterwards, Chevy Man passed from mortal to legend. And the Giants have won another World Series.  Prior to the start, The Wife said that whoever scored first would win.  She is an oracle, I'm telling you.

Prepare to be hated, fellow Giants fans, for we are now basically Yankees fans.  Oh well.

They've already got the banners up.  That was fast.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this story, we reported that Kansas City Designated Hitter Billy Butler "looks like chromosome damage and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome got together and had a party." After further consideration, this was unnecessarily mean and not in the spirit of being a good winner.  40 Going On 28 regrets the error.

World Series Game 3, EXPRESS LANE EDITION: This is a drag

Sorry I don't have time to do a full-length in depth update or whatever it is I usually do.  I've got an 18-month-old running around yelling "Trapes!" and "Patchik" (because she can't say "g" or "c" so "grapes" comes out like "trapes" and Patrick is the name of the T. Rex skeleton at the Academy of Sciences which she is in love with and wants to go see every day) and so I'm kinda in the weeds here.  This will be the ultra fast drive by edition.  Luckily nothing memorable happened, from a Giants point of view.

(That would be a great SF trivia question - what is the name of the T.Rex at the Academy of Sciences? - because I don't think the name is on the sign anywhere.)

Tim Hudson is 55 years old.  First pitch, KC leadoff hitter Alcides Escobar launches a double that looked like it was going out.  Oh no.  The only end up scoring 1 in that inning.

An old man looks for a comfortable place to sit.  Photo stolen from SFGate but fuck it, I paid for a Chronicle subscription in the '90s and only got like 2 papers so they owe me.

Fuck, not like it's Hudson's fault.  His job is to keep the opponent from scoring a bunch of runs and he did that.  His job is not to score runs, and he didn't do that.

The Giants cannot hit baseballs.  If the Giants were your phone it would have no bars.  They had 4 hits in the whole game, which as a team is only 4 more than I had personally, and I'm not playing in the World Series.

Michael Morse got a hit.  He's about the only one that gets any hits anymore.  The Giants did get 2 runs in the sixth but it never seemed like they were in it.

This is the scariest thing I've read all day:  "Bochy plans to start Juan Perez in left field in Game 4 against left-hander Jason Vargas, but did not eliminate the possibility of going with Morse even with his lack of defensive playing time since he got hurt."  This is the scariest shit since The Ring.  If you think "we need help on offense," you do not think "JUAN PEREZ IS THAT HELP."  Juan Perez is batting .125 in the postseason.  Tim Hudson is batting .250, and he's not supposed to be able to hit.

Meanwhile, we're all just Waiting for Bumgarner.  If they lose tonight it may already be too late for the Angel of Hickory NC to save them.  It's very hard to win 3 games out of 4.  It's much harder to win 3 games in a row, all of them elimination games.

If I could only think of some time in the past that's ever happened.

Types of annoying people RANKED

Types of annoying people RANKED
— Cuhsandra (@Cuhsandra) October 7, 2014

OK.

28. Obviously fake name at Starbucks

27. Three abreast walkers

26. Bad tippers

25. Burning Man people who are super into being Burning Man people

24. People who don't give up their seats to the elderly or the pregnant or the disabled or someone holding a small child on public transit

23. No turn signal

22. Clerks who turn bills so they all face the same way before completing a transaction

21. Boston Red Sox fans

20. People who order five sandwiches in the deli line

19. People who constantly quote movie lines instead of having their own sense of humor

18. Weekend sports anchors

17. Relatives on Facebook who only post crazy right-wing crackpot stuff

16.  Bicyclists on the sidewalk

15. Loud bros

14. Takes way too long at the ATM

13. "I don't own a TV"

12. Has very specific diet; wants to make sure you know all about the diet and what they can and can't eat

11. Kid Rock

10. SFGate commenters

9. People who stand on the left side of the escalator

8. Teens

7. Sidewalk clipboard fundraisers

6. People who date your ex

5. Dudes who obviously ogle women and catcall and shit like that

4. Responds to lengthy text asking a question with "K"

3. People who leave voicemails

2. Loud cell phone talkers

1. Everybody else in general

The Bars that Time Forgot, an occasional series, vol IV: The Jack's empire

Today's TBTTF is a little different because we're not talking about just one bar, but a whole chain of bars that used to dot the city.  When I first got here in 1990 there were at least 6 of them and there may have been more before then.  I'm assuming that there was a real "Jack" who opened the ur-Jack's at some point and then his empire grew and grew but I don't know for sure.

Here's an ad from a 1994 SF Weekly:

As you can see, six bars are listed there.  I did some research and by research I mean Googling for 10 minutes and here's what we've learned:

Jack's Bar - Maybe the flagship?  Who knows.  It was at 1601 Fillmore and is now the Boom Boom Room.  I can remember going there when it was still Jack's.  According to "Historic Walks in San Francisco: 18 Trails Through the City's Past," Jack's originally opened in 1933 on Sutter and was the first bar in the area to cater to African-Americans.  Pretty cool.  When I went there it seemed like it catered mostly to drunk white boys like myself.  I remember a lot of taps?  Was that their thing?  Maybe.

Jack's Cable Car - at 1548 California, now the horribly-named "Soda Popinski's."  In the interim it was apparently at some point called "California Dream'n," as referenced in this SF Weekly piece that notes that the Jack's Cable Car sign is still out front.

via SF Weekly, natch

Jack's Red Bear - 1176 Sutter, where R Bar is now.  I have no memory of this ever being Jack's Red Bear!  Prior to R Bar, the space was An Sibin, a DJ bar back when there were "DJ bars."  Again, SF Weekly proves helpful by informing us that before it was An Sibin it was Mulligan's so who knows when the Red Bear bit the dust.

Jack's Elixir - is now, unsurprisingly, Elixir, at the corner of 16th and Guerrero.  According to Elixir's own website, it was a Jack's only from 1990 to 1998.  I can definitely remember coming here when it was a Jack's.

Jack's Taps - This is the one that blew me away.  At 1300 Church (at 25th), it's now a "Purely Physical Fitness," which I guess is the opposite of a bar.  Walking by there, there is no indication that it used to be a bar.  I had no idea.

Jack's Presidio - Well, I guess this one surprised me too.  3490 California, now a UCSF Primary Care center, which I guess is just as opposite of a bar as a gym.  I have no memory of ever hearing anything about Jack's Presidio, but apparently it was a bar as late as 1994.  Street view for 3490 California gives no hint:

Based on that picture (which looks like it could be in Anytown, CA, BTW), I would say the building housing Jack's Presidio has long since been demolished.

So that's about it.  I have this feeling there has to be a much better history of the Jack's chain of bars somewhere so if you know where that is, please point me to it.  It's kind of amazing that this whole chain just disappeared without a trace.

(Postscript: I have no idea if Jack's Cannery Bar is a holdout or is in any way related to the original Jack's chain. I kind of doubt it but I could be wrong.)

UPDATE!!!!!  Reader Stephen has reminded us that the current home of Emperor Norton's Boozeland (which is a fine bar in its own right and worth a visit for the $3 Anchor California Lager on tap alone [but that might just be for happy hour]) used to be Jack's Deco and then just Deco.  In fact, if you had the magical ability to see to the left and right of the ad pictured at top, you'd see the next door neighbor ad on the left is for the uni-named "Deco," indicating that Jack had already left the building,  Thanks, Stephen!

FURTHER UPDATE!!!!  Another helpful reader writes in with memories about the mysterious Jack's Presidio:

Re Jack's Presidio location:  I have lived in LH since 1986.  The picture you have on your web site shows a mixed-use building with apartments, Charles Schwab, a high-end sandwich place, etc.  Before that building, however, there was a big diner called the Sugar Plum, which was a much larger version of the Zim's and Miz Browne's Feed Bag diners across the street in Laurel Village.  It had a small cocktail lounge built inside it.

Yes, at one time there were three diners in the hood, and now there are none.  But we do have an eatery with the ridiculously precious name Beautifull!, which sells yuppie catnip at stoopid prices.

Anyway, sometime circa the early 1990s, the Jack's Bars began to explode throughout the city, grabbing on to the early microbrew explosion in SF, which began in the mid-1980s.  From my memory, the Jack in the Mission was the first one, with all other ones branching off from that...but my memory only goes back to 1984, when I moved here.

So, the small cocktail lounge was replaced by a Jack's branch.  Absolutely nothing was done to the interior to modify or upgrade it.  It was still a hole-in-the-wall, just with a better beer selection.  It offered the nice opportunity to do a beer "runner" between that location and the Pig and Whistle, which opened up a Geary/Laurel circa the early 1990s.  Jack's Presidio only stayed open a few years, though, maybe 2-3.

Please don't shoot the dinosaurs

This was eventually bound to happen.

South Carolina teen with terrible haircut arrested for threatening to kill dinosaur

So much going on here.

A Summerville High School student who says he was arrested and suspended after writing about killing a dinosaur using a gun in a class assignment has hired a lawyer.

Stone said he and his classmates were told in class to write a few sentences about themselves, and a "status" as if it was a Facebook page. Stone said in his "status" he wrote a fictional story that involved the words "gun" and "take care of business."

"I killed my neighbor's pet dinosaur, and, then, in the next status I said I bought the gun to take care of the business," Stone said.

GET OUT OF THE WAY HERE COME THE HOT TAKES

1. Of course it's absurd, but this is what you get when you mix a country where school shootings are sadly routine with a state that venerates guns so much that the governor, fresh off signing a bill allowing drunks and those about to become drunk to carry their pieces into bars, also wants to eliminate concealed carry permits entirely and let anyone tote a gun anywhere.  So when a student in South Carolina  writes about buying a gun, you don't think "Pshaw, that's ludicrous!", you think, "Fuck, is he strapped right now?"  Welcome to the Unintended Consequences Aisle of Gun Culture Mart.

2. Dinosaurs aren't real.

3. "I bought the gun to take care of the business" sounds like something a sociopath would say, so I support this arrest.

4. Really, the haircut.

5. If you believe that dinosaurs and Jesus lived at the same time, well, it's not a stretch to believing that a coupla stray dinosaurs might still be around.

BANG BANG.  Have a good weekend!

Have you looked at the list of highest grossing films of all time lately? It's depressing.

Used to be when I was a kid the list of highest grossing films was pretty respectable.  You had your classics like Gone With the Wind and your new blockbusters like Jaws.  Both of those are pretty highly regarded today.  I'm sure there was some embarrassing shit on there, but have you looked at the list lately?  It's horrifying.  I was just looking this weekend for some reason and boy was it a surprise.

Here's the top 19 1/2 (#20, partially cut off, is Harry Potter and the Laundromat of Time or something, who even cares).  Of the Top 10 Highest Grossing Movies of All Time as of Today,

3 are based on comic books

7 are sequels, in some form or another (I'm counting Skyfall here)

1 is based on a fucking child's toy

1 is based on a historical event

1 has only been out a few months and has driven parents nationwide mad

Only 1 is an "original" film, in that it originated with its own script and isn't based on a Viewmaster slide, a Burger King food item, or a trading card.  That one original film is one of the worst movies ever made.

In an alternate universe, this list could just as easily contain two Garbage Pail Kids live-action films, a movie based on the adventures of a superhero who can control humidity, and a dramatic retelling of a balloon crash.  It's depressing but also reflective of a larger truth, which is that most people are fucking idiots.

Don't even go look at the Top 50.  It's pretty much the same.  Transformers movie, Harry Potter movie, Comic Book movie, Star Wars movie, Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  Ugh.

The Adjusted for Inflation list is somewhat better.

Ahhhhhh that's better.  There's our old pal GWTW, back in its semi-rightful place on top.  Meanwhile, The Sound of Music, The Ten Commandments, Doctor Zhivago, and Snow White are having a drink by the bar and trying to pretend Avatar isn't in the room.  E.T. and Jaws are fine.  Titanic is just going to be there.

(In case you're wondering, the greatest film of all time, Cannonball Run II, is at #2,377 with a total domestic gross of $28,078,073.)

R.I.P. Dad

My father passed away yesterday in his own bed at home, the way he wanted to.  In the end, it was cancer that got him, but after 87 years, the cause of death doesn't mean much.  I like to think he lived a life that was so full it's hard to imagine fitting it all into 87 years.

He was born in 1926 in rural Virginia, a place and time so far removed from my life that it might as well be another planet.  I've looked at the Census Records and suddenly there on the 1930 Census there's a boy, Robert, age 3.  Hiding behind the cramped, crabby handwriting on that form is a little boy who grew up with cows and chickens and rode his family's mule.  They ate organic, free-range food way before those labels were even invented.  They just called it "dinner."

Dad was the youngest of his siblings and has told me that being the youngest probably motivated him to work harder and do more.  What he wanted to do was fly airplanes, so when he was 17 he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, the precursor to today's Air Force.  Sure enough, they taught him how to fly.  Then they sent him to Japan to occupy the country.

He stayed in the Army even after the Air Force split off and they sent him all over the world.  Least Favorite Place: Greenland.  Most Favorite: Australia.  In fact, later in life, he badly wanted to return to Australia one day.  Never made it, though.  Along the way, he got married and had a couple of kids, my half-brother and half-sister.

After he got out of the Army, he flew for Continental Airlines, but instead of the Chicago-New York route, he went to Southeast Asia at the height of the Vietnam War and flew the Saigon-Bangkok route.  He was living in an apartment in Bangkok and riding a motorcycle to work at the airport.  I would have LOVED to have a drink with him at some bar in Saigon back then.  God knows, the man liked to take a drink.  It looked like it might be a problem until, as he told me, he got sick of waking up feeling like shit every day and suddenly stopped one day when I was a kid, no AA or anything.

He met my Mom in Bimini in the Bahamas and they got married and I was born and to say that things didn't work out between them would be putting it mildly.  After my sister was born, things deteriorated rapidly and they got divorced.  Things also didn't work out between Mom and me, and I moved in with Dad.  During that time, I think I started to figure out how to live and act and be in the world.  Dad's lessons were old-school and basic - take responsibility for your actions; everything you do has consequences; actions speak louder than words; give respect to get it - but those lessons are also sometimes the hardest to learn.  I learned them from Dad and although I'll never completely live up to them, he gave me something to shoot for.

Dad & Me: The Early Years

As you can imagine, Dad was a staunch conservative, but he never sweated me about any of the crazy shit I did like moving to San Francisco with no job and no contacts when I was 22 years old or majoring in English or whatever.  He always said he'd support me no matter what and he always did.

It's not like his death was some sudden, devastating surprise.  He's been sick for a while, and given his age, I've been thinking about the Post-Dad Era of my life since my 30's.  You know what?  It's not at all like I imagined.  I sort of pictured being consumed by grief, but instead I feel kind of calm and relieved that he isn't hurting any more.  Of course, as The Wife, who's lost both of her parents, one just a few months ago, told me, "Grief isn't linear."  I'm sure I'll grieve in a lot of little ways for years, like every Friday around 3 when we used to talk on the phone, instead of in one big grief tsunami.  Which is fine.

This is sort of long and rambling and not quite as artful as I wanted it to be.  But here's to you, Dad.  If there is an afterlife, I hope you're up there now, flying a Beechcraft Baron, with a bourbon in one hand and a Winston in the other.  Thanks for everything, Dad.  I never could have got here without you.  Love you.

Show Report: Foxygen, at The Independent

Everyone knows that in the Celtic calendar, three days after the Blood Moon is motherfucking DATE NIGHT so we left baby Beyonce in The Sister's attentive care and hit the fucking town.

After a stop for some overpriced Mexican food, we found ourselves at the Independent to see Foxygen.  They had one of my favorite albums of 2013, the somewhat embarrassingly named "We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic," but I had heard some disturbing stories about their live shows - i.e., long breaks in the middle of sets, fighting onstage, and all kinds of other bullshit that bands shouldn't do but I think they're about 15 years old so what do you want out of a kid.  Also, the lead singer fell off the stage once and broke his leg.  The Wife had been exposed to the music just from me constantly playing the album last year but I don't think she expected much.

It was fucking great.  Go see this band if you ever get a chance.

One touchpoint for their sounds is Satanic Majesties Request-era Stones, and the lead singer did his best nouveau Jagger, down to the duckface and the utterly inhibition-free dancing.  Plus, they had three women backup singers.  INDIE BANDS, YOU HAVE BEEN DOING IT WRONG THE WHOLE TIME.  Why stand there glumly when you can have THREE WOMEN BACKUP SINGERS and dance around?

The Wife quickly developed a crush on Backup Singer #1, and no big surprise there, she was sexy as hell.  If you can see the way she's looking at Mini-Jagger, though, it's pretty clear The Wife had no shot with her.

Mini-Jagger's between-song banter was eclectic, to say the least.  "MAKE SOME NOISE IF YOU'RE PREGNANT!" he yelled at one point.  Then, looking almost directly at me (we were right up front), he said, "Who here got a babysitter so they could come to the show tonight?"  IT'S LIKE YOU'RE LOOKING INTO MY SOUL MAN.

Plus a lot of my favorite songs were frontloaded, which was was great because we had to leave at 11:20 because of our dopey baby.  Always stepping on our good time!  I'm just kidding, CPS, put the phone down.  But seriously, it's tough when the headliner doesn't even go on until 10:45.  Man, we are all fucking old.

Goddam it was fun.

They are doing horrible things to vodka. Unspeakable things.

Vodka used to come in one flavor: vodka.  Vodka was vodka flavored.  That was fine.  If you wanted a drink of vodka, you got a drink of vodka.  Maybe it was Sunday and you put tomato juice and spices in it and it was a Bloody Mary, but it was still vodka in there.

Then people started dropping produce in vodka and letting it sit for a while and making infused vodkas.  This was somewhat OK, I guess.  I had a cucumber vodka once that was interesting.  There was a whole bar on 2nd near the Giants' stadium (which was then Pac Bell Park, I think) called INFUSION that specialized in infused vodka.  OK, whatever.

Apparently convinced that the palate of the drinking public now more closely resembles that of a 6-year-old child than a Soviet truck driver, vodka manufacturers have now departed reality and begun producing a whole slew of Children's Birthday Party Vodkas.

These are ACTUAL FLAVORS of vodka made by Pinnacle, a cheapish vodka owned by Jim Beam which, according to its website, "starts with the finest wheat grain from the Brie region of France" but ends up at Safeway for $9.99:

Cookie Dough Vodka
County Fair Cotton Vodka
Cake Vodka

I don't even know what "County Fair Cotton" vodka might possibly taste like.  Organic Textile Vodka?  Dress Short Vodka?  800 Thread Count Vodka.  But none of these are as nauseating as Pinnacle's newest innovation:

That's right, the two things that make airports bearable, Cinnabon and booze, together at last!  How the fuck you make a vodka taste like the pure fat/sadness of a Cinnabon is beyond me, but the Morbidly Obese Alcoholic in your family finally has a product custom tailored to his or her needs.  As long as we're doing airports, Pinnacle, I eagerly await Panda Express Vodka and Pizza Hut Express Vodka.

I shouldn't say that, because I imagine pizza vodka is not far off.

Not that Pinnacle is alone in this Alchemy of the Damned.  Smirnoff now makes Iced Cake Vodka, Fluffed Marshmallow Vodka, and Cinna-Sugar Twist Vodka, so when it's your turn to be Drinks Mom at soccer practice, you know where to start.

As a humorous sidenote, Smirnoff also makes a line of malted beverages/teenage alcohol gateway products called Smirnoff Ice, including such flavors as Smirnoff Ice Pineapple which I bet smells just as bad puked up behind Taylor's house at 12:30 a.m. as it did when you opened it after shoplifting it from Lunardi's.

Stick with whiskey.