Your Guide to Super Bowl Festivities in Downtown San Francisco

How many times have you thought "Hey, I wish my city was hosting activities tangentially related to a sporting event that will actually be played 50 miles away at enormous civic cost and virtually no return on investment, but with guaranteed headaches and inconveniences for vast swaths of the local population, all for the purpose of enriching a few billionaires and perpetuating a morally questionable sport that leaves some who play it with lifelong diminshed cognitive function?"

A lot, right? Well, FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!!!!!  SUPER BOWL 50 IS HERE!!!*

* Not actually "here."

Check out all the fun events and activities at SUPER BOWL CITY!!!

First you'll want to note the area in RICH OWNER RED.  That's fabulous SUPER BOWL CITY, where you'll be subjected to invasive, airport-style security just to get to the Subway, which you probably shouldn't be going to anyway.  Inside SUPER BOWL CITY you'll find fun activities like OH NO NOT THE PATRIOTS AGAIN, a 36-hour-long loop of Tom Brady throwing an 8-yard pass to a tight end, and BUILD ME A STADIUM YOU LITTLE FUCK, where you can pretend to be a megarich team owner and force a struggling municipality to go to a three-month school year to have enough money to build you a new stadium to replace the one you had them build you just 8 years ago!

Oh no!  What's that sound?  Has an NFL player gotten loose from the Containment Area and is threatening passerby?  Please quickly and quietly assemble at the ROID RAGE EVACUATION POINT for removal by ferry while our team of trained specialists restrains and calms Mr. Hardy.

Down Market Street a bit you'll find CONCUSSION JUNCTION.  Take a monster blow to the head in our Aeneaswilliamsizer and then compete to finish simple tasks like remembering to pick your kids up from school or successfully ordering bottles of Ace of Spades for your boys at XS!  Don't try taking Muni there, though.  We've removed all the busses so limos full of cocaine and champagne can get through!

[PLEASE NOTE: NFL Executives, you will need to check in at the Mayor's Reception/Quid Pro Quo Donation Station upon arrival.  Please remember to discard dirty money in the box marked "ILLEGAL CONTRIBUTIONS HERE." Thank you!]

Want to participate in the fun, but don't have thousands of dollars in disposable income?  You'll be welcomed warmly at the CITIZEN PEN, where you'll find a VCR with a grainy copy of one of the Cowboys-Bills Super Bowls and a box of Bagel Bites.

Also remember, we've partnered with Uber to bring you GUESS THE SURGE all week!  Trying to get home from work because Muni is completely shut down?  That'll be 2.4x normal!  Thanks for playing!

Coldplay is a gift

Fey British Mom-rockers Coldplay were announced as the halftme entertainment for Super Bowl L.  Predictably, everyone lost their goddam minds.

Colplay playing the Super Bowl? Will they play that one that sounds exactly like all the other ones and is also terrible?

— Andrew Stoeten (@AndrewStoeten) December 4, 2015

Coldplay? seriously? One more reason Goodell must step down

— Matt Powell (@NPDMattPowell) December 4, 2015

Coldplay for a Silicon Valley Super Bowl sounds about right for some reason.

— Niners Nation (@NinersNation) December 3, 2015

Chin up, footballers! It could be so, so, so much worse. Just check out this list of Super Bowl halftime performers.  It is truly a dark tome.

FOR THE FIRST FEW YEARS, it was mostly marching bands, which is fine because no one cares and you can go get more Jell-O with marshmallows in it and a Hershey bar or whateverTF they ate in the late 60's.  The producer of the Super Bowl IV halftime show, in 1970, no doubt had a headful of the cheap and plentiful blotter acid that flooded the market back then because he booked Carol Channing and the Southern University Marching Band, two entities that had almost certainly never been in the same room together.

Super Bowl V, 1971, featured the first appearance of Up With People, a "musical" sensation so bland and earnest it makes It's a Small World look like Cannibal Corpse.  Up With People would return to darken the Super Bowl stage again and again, in 1976, 1980, 1982, and 1986, before they were blessedly sent to a re-education camp in the North Dakota desert and never heard from again.

UPDATE: Commenter Stoney claims to have no memory of Up With People!  Let's fix that.


Shoulda kept your mouth shut, big man.

What we think of as the Event Halftime didn't really start until Michael Jackson did it in 1993.  (Don't even try to suggest it started in 1991, with "New Kids on the Block (NKOTB), Disney characters, Warren Moon, 2,000 [presumably terrified] local children, and audience card stunt")  Suddenly Carol Channing, the USC Trojans Marching Band, and UWP were shunted to the side to make way for more palatable artists like The Blues Brothers (1997) and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (1999).

The path to Coldplay was paved by similarly self-important anthemizers U2 in 2002.  Somehow-younger-seeming-than-U2 Paul McCartney was in 2005 and the Stones in 2006 but surprisingly not Elton John or Paul Revere and the Raiders in 2007.

(I started looking into this because Olu texted me about Peter Hartlaub's suggestion that Huey Lewis play the SB and I was honestly shocked Huey has never played a SB.  Is there any more perfect SB artist?  He's as smooth and featureless as a beach pebble, and even has an album called "Sports."  It's amazing the NFL didn't invent him solely for the purpose of playing halftime shows.)

So in closing, stop bitching about Coldplay.  At least it's not Charo with the Southeastern Missouri Marching Beavers or whatever they have.

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.

Today in Our Garbage City: This city isn't for you anymore, it's for Them

I don't think anyone really appreciates yet the level of fuckery that's going to accompany the arrival of Super Bowl L in February which is not being played in San Francisco at all but rather in Santa Clausa or whatever but will effectively shut down downtown because no Regional VP of Sales who's getting sent to the Super Bowl as a reward for beating revenue targets for three straight years wants to go to the Cheesecake Factory in Santa Clara when he could go to the Cheesecake Factory in Union Square.  So the NFL and Business Fingerpuppet Ed Lee have joined forces to shut down the foot of Market for 2 weeks so business douches and Patriots fans can wallow around in money and celebrate a sport that's not even played professionally here any more.

Despite the obvious annoyance that this shitacular is going to be, I was more or less agnostic on hating it until this came out:

The committee planning Super Bowl City are asking that Muni’s overhead wires be taken down near Justin Herman Plaza, the San Francisco Examiner has learned, potentially disrupting service of Muni’s historic streetcars and wire-dependent buses.

Supervisor Jane Kim, whose district includes the plaza, said she thought the potential plan was well-known.

“Yeah, that’s real,” she said. “The [Super Bow] committee has been very open about it. They’ve said that’s what they want.”

She added, “They’ve definitely been asking to take down the overhead wires on Market Street.”

You get this?  These dickbrains want to take down the wires that the fucking buses and streetcars use, because I guess they'll interfere with the views or something or, more likely, because they think that might keep the ugly vermin that ride Muni from making it into their Morbidly Obese Capitalism Zone.  FUCK YOU, SAN FRANCISCO!  If you need to get somewhere on lower Market in February, you should have either started a Fortune 500 company or been better at football.

Sources with close knowledge of the project also confirmed the potential plan. Those sources, who would not use their names for fear of reprisal from the Mayor’s Office, also said removing numerous wires on Market Street may cost a “seven-figure number” requiring “lots of overtime” to remove correctly.

So much here.  The only people who can talk about this must remain hidden in the shadows lest whoever the fuck it is who really runs this yard visits a terrible revenge on them.  But hey, we've got plenty of seven-figure numbers to throw around, now that all that money from Airbnb registrations is rollng in, right?

Elsewhere, the lovely Palace of Fine Arts, long a civic institution, is being boring and not doing what you're supposed to do in Our Garbage City, which is generate TONS O' CASH.  So hey, let's fucking MONETIZE THAT BITCH!!!

From 7x7:

The Palace of Fine Arts is one of San Francisco’s most iconic public buildings, and some folks are none too happy about potential plans to turn the cultural landmark into a luxury boutique hotel. 

Back in December 2014, Rec and Park issued a press release announcing a request for proposals for what general manager Phil Ginsburg called "a unique business opportunity" for private businesses to pitch creative takeovers of the 140,000 square-foot structure. As of last week, the city has accepted three proposals for the fomer Exploratorium space: two would transform the building into a hotel, and one suggests opening a museum and restaurant.

Whatever.  Fine.  That's where we live now.  If you're not generating ROI, you're fucking dead to us.  LEARN TO CODE, PALACE OF FINE ARTS, OR GET LEFT BEHIND.

(Also, bless your heart, makers of the Change.org petition to stop this, but it's "San Francisco," not "San Fransisco," sweetie.)

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.

Jim Harbaugh's Twitters are the ravings of a lunatic

Former 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh just took to Twitter and MAN IS HE EXCITED.

"Anything less than a man's best effort cheats himself! Demeans him! Spoils him! Ruins him! Cheapens him! Emerson
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) January 16, 2015

Emerson! Loved to use! Exclamation points! Didn't he!

His whole Twitter stream is like this.  It's like somebody gave molly to a Labrador.

Attacking this day with Enthusiasm Unknown to Mankind
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) January 15, 2015

That's a lot of Enthusiasm! But I wonder what kind of Enthusiasm is Unknown to Mankind. ALIEN ENTHUSIASM. Jim Harbaugh is an alien.

Some of the tweets read like someone is holding a gun to his head and forcing him to type them:

Life at Michigan is Great! Great with a capital "G!"
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) January 14, 2015

YES EVERYTHING IS GREAT. WHY DO YOU ASK. IT'S SO GREAT. SO SO SO GREAT.

Now following Pope Francis @Pontifex. Go Blue!
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) January 8, 2015

Pope Francis is a Michigan fan? Oh shit, wait til Notre Dame finds out about this. They'll dump Catholicism and become a Greek Orthodox school. Notros Damos.

Also, Jim Harbaugh's dad looks EXACTLY like Jim Harbaugh with old man makeup on:

Have a good weekend!

What would it actually take for Roger Goodell to get fired?

Everybody wants Roger Goodell fired!  Ann Killion at our beloved Chron says "Emperor Goodell's reign should be suspended indefinitely."  He's not a real emperor, I don't think.  Emperor of Fucking Up, maybe.  ZING.  Meanwhile, Grantland wants to know "What Does It Take to Get Roger Goodell Fired?" and even Vice has managed to look up from the cocaine table long enough to muse "Wait, why hasn't NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell been fired yet?"

So yeah, what would it take?  Let's look at some scenarios.

ACTION: Roger Goodell deletes NFL's Season Recording of "What Not to Wear."

EXPLANATION: "Come on, it's like the same thing every episode.  There is no way you were going to watch all those.  We were at 82%.  Come on."

RESULT: NFL glares at Goodell; Goodell not fired.

ACTION: Roger Goodell calls Cowboys fans "the most loathsome, repellent sacks of supposedly organic matter ever to leak excrement onto the Earth."

EXPLANATION: "Well, it's true."

RESULT: Nothing.  It is true.  Goodell not fired.

ACTION: Roger Goodell drafts Wes Welker in the first round of his fantasy draft.

EXPLANATION: "I like him. He plays with a lot of heart."

RESULT: Roger Goodell's fantasy team, "Great Players in the NFL," loses week 1 by 81 points to "Peyton's Manhole."  Roger Goodell not fired.

ACTION: Roger Goodell lists Pink's "Don't Let Me Get Me" as "My ATF Song" in a Tumblr questionnaire that's going around.

EXPLANATION: "Pink totally rules! This song is so badass."

RESULT: NFL stares at Roger Goodell for a long time and then walks away.  Roger Goodell not fired.

ACTION: Roger Goodell tries to claim 3 different pints of Ben & Jerry's are "one item" to get under 12-item threshhold.

EXPLANATION: "They're all the same thing. They're all ice cream.  You could put them all in one bowl together."

RESULT: NFL explains that the test is whether the scanner beeps more than once.  One scanner beep = one item.  3 pints = 3 items.  Goodell sent to regular line behind a woman with two overflowing carts and 5 children aged 3 to 9.  Goodell not fired.

ACTION: Roger Goodell is short 50 cents to purchse Funnyuns at Pak N Go in Arlington, Texas.  Takes 50 cents from Jerry Jones's change cup in car while Jerry Jones uses bathroom.

EXPLANATION: "It was only 50 cents."

RESULT: Roger Goodell is fired.

Sometimes missing out is for the best, SFGate

OK!  Hopefully no one else dies for a while so we can get back to doing what we do best: SPOUTING ILL-INFORMED SNARK ABOUT THINGS WE HAVE ONLY SUPERFICIAL KNOWLEDGE ABOUT!

Let's start with this SFGate article by Heather Knight entitled "Is S.F.'s too-cool attitude a turnoff?"  The gist of the article is that San Francisco is missing out on all kinds of cool stuff because, I think, we make it too hard to build things or make things or host things or whatever here.  Here are the things the article says we were too cool for:

1. Another America's Cup
2. A new 49ers stadium
3. George Lucas' "art" museum

To be fair, Heather has a point with the 49ers stadium.  The City - and by The City I mean Gavin Fucking Newsom - did not do enough to try and keep the 49ers in San Francisco.  I will totally grant you that.  The rest, however, is pretty much bullshit.

ANOTHER AMERICA'S CUP?  ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND HEATHER KNIGHT.  Do you even remember the last one?  THE CITY LOST MONEY ON IT.  This is an event so few people give a shit about that THEY HAD TO PAY TO PUT IT ON TV.  The way I understand it, with other sports, thee TV people actually pay the sports people for the right to broadcast the sport.  Not the America's Cup!  I guess the 0.000001% of America that has any interest in sailboat racing is used to buying TV networks though.

Anyway, point being, if you think SF really lost out on something by losing the privilege of hosting a bunch of Scrooge McDucks' boat race and taking a bath on it in the process, we'll have to disagree.

Then there's the George Lucas Ego Monument.  I'm no Star Wars geek or anything but I get the impression that all those nerds think George Lucas really fucked up the franchise with the later movies.  Basically he wanted to take some of his huge wet gobs of money and plop down a museum wherever the fuck he wanted it, in this case Crissy Field, a beautiful open space that was lovingly restored just a few years ago.

I wasn't crazy about the renderings for the museum either

So when the Presidio Trust said he couldn't put his museum there the City offered him another PRIME FUCKING SPOT on the waterfront but had the UNMITIGATED GALL to ask George Lucas, who has the net worth of $unlimited and could buy Chile on a whim, to kick in a little for the fucking site.  So George Lucas got Chicago drunk on Fireball shots and Chicago giggled and gave George Lucas a prime waterfront spot for $1 a year.

OH SHOOT.  What did we miss out on?

You have got to be shitting me.  We've already got a Maxfield Parrish, and it's located exactly where it belongs, in a bar.  The Vargas is nice if you're decorating an L.A. porn producer's house in 1988.  And hey!  It's a DVD cover!  I get the strong feeling that the gift shop at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will be larger than the galleries.  The point is, we hardly need a tourist trap museum with a questionable collection to be considered a world-class city.  I just can't work up a lot of grief over losing this thing.

[STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Of course there's all kinds of stuff SF could do differently, it's probably too hard to get things done in this town, blah blah blah, we all know that.  I'm just talking about these two things in particular.]

It Was 20 Years Ago Today

We are introducing a new feature!  It is called "It Was 20 Years Ago Today."  This is how it works: from time to time, I dig up the SF Chron from 20 years ago to the day and see WHAT WAS UP on that day.  Fun, huh!  Let's get started.

Here's the front page from September 6, 1993.  It was a Monday, which means almost everyone at the Chronicle was still drunk or hungover from the weekend, so there was not a lot of content.

"Gulf States, Syria Back Peace Plan."  HOW'S THAT WORKIN OUT, GULF STATES AND SYRIA?

Also, there is something very chilling in the upper right hand corner.  See how the Giants' lead in the NL West has shrunk to 2 1/2 games?  (BTW, the Braves were in the NL West back then.  I know, MIND BLOWN.)  Anyway, NO SPOILERS, but this lead is going to get even tighter, and soon.  SPOOKY.

In the Bay Area section, we have something about an office tower "beauty contest" fizzling out.  Mostly it's about how there's shitloads of vacant office space in downtown SF and we don't need any new office towers.  JUST WAIT, SF, THERE'S AN INTERNET A-COMIN.

Herb Caen's column was about Labor Day.

They can't all be Pulitzer winners.

The 49ers won.

"Thumbs up" because Steve Young had a thumb injury, get it?  Also, this proves that Scott Ostler wasn't funny 20 years ago either.  Sorry for the crappy copy quality.  Blame the SF Main Library, not me.

(BTW, dude in a tank top and leather necklace forcing yourself onto the elevator in the library, LET US GET THE FUCK OUT FIRST.  I promise you that you will get the #1 spot on the elevator, as soon as THE OCCUPANTS HAVE VACATED THE SPACE.)

Finally, we need a new VCR!

WHEW, I was hoping we could find one under $200.  But Limit 1 Per Family!  That's not fair!  We need one for the rec room so Jason can tape videos off of MTV!

This is fun!  We'll do it again soon.  Gotta keep an eye on those Giants.  I'm warning you.  Shit gets dicey.

Sports Illustrated staffer woefully mistaken about San Francisco sports bars

One "Lee Jenkins," a Sports Illustrated staff writer, recently penned this otherwise charming piece about being an obsessive fan of, as it happens, Vanderbilt football, which is where he went to college.

I enrolled at Vanderbilt in 1995, and on the second play of the first game 5'7" tailback Jermaine Johnson pinballed 75 yards through the Alabama defense. Nearly 20 years later I have watched Vanderbilt at a Champps or a Buffalo Wild Wings in virtually every American metropolis. I've left weddings when I was a groomsman. I've postponed assignments on deadline. I once got temporarily ejected from Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium for flipping the press-box TV to Vanderbilt-Florida. In San Francisco, a city lacking sports bars, I persuaded The Condor to open at 9 a.m. for Vanderbilt--South Carolina. The Condor, it turned out, was a strip joint. A weary dancer and I watched alone. Vanderbilt lost that game, and most others. My wife stopped making Saturday-night plans. Grieving takes time.

Vanderbilt was to the SEC what Florida State would have been to the Ivy League, only the opposite, by far the smallest school with the smallest stadium and steepest academic requirements. But it's hard to take solace in APR rankings when you go 30 years without a winning regular season. I never laughed at the Weed-Eater Bowl. I fantasized about it (and almost got there in '05!).

Now, thanks to a visionary coach—who I won't name for fear that someone will throw $50 million at him—I've spent the past two New Year's Eves at bowls. Last season Vanderbilt won nine games for the first time since 1915, and over my computer hangs the final AP poll, which has an unfamiliar name at 23rd. That's AP, not APR.

Aww, that's sweet. Except for one thing:

"In San Francisco, A CITY LACKING SPORTS BARS . . . ."

Whoa whoa whoa.  For whatever other faults SF may have, I think you can hardly argue it "lacks sports bars."  Maybe it "lacks sports bars in whatever hotel Lee Jenkins was staying in" or "lacks huge chain sports bars like Lee Jenkins is used to."  But consider this.  The game he's talking about probably happened in 2004, when Vanderbilt played South Carolina at 11:30 a.m. Central time (i.e., 9:30 a.m. our time.)  In 2004, the Condor, which has had a long and storied past and had been a strip club in previous incarnations, had just switched back to being a strip club again.  Immediately before that?  It was a SPORTS BAR.

About 3 blocks away from the Condor is the North Star, a small but perfectly reasonable sports bar.  I doubt it was open on Saturday at 9, but still.  Oh, and there's a totally corporate sports bar called Knuckles in the Hyatt at the Wharf that opens at 6:30 a.m. and is probably weary-dancer-free.  I'm not saying that Knuckles is a great option, but it's close to where Lee was and I bet they were open and showing football at 9:30 a.m.

If Lee had been willing to hop in a cab, of course, there is a whole universe of really great sports bars:  Kezar and the Phoenix and Connecticut Yankee and any number of other places that I'm sure would have been able to accommodate Mr. Jenkins.  Greens on Polk is really not far from the Condor, and they open at 10 a.m.  That's close!  I'm 100% sure that Google was around in 2004 and Googling "San Francisco sports bars" would have returned some usable results.

Sorry we don't have a Buffalo Wild Wings or a "Champps," whatever that is, though.

Brushes with Fame

Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey was friends with my sister in high school.  I talked to him for a while at her HS graduation party.  I advised him to go directly into MLB instead of college.  Oddly, R.A. Dickey ignored my advice and instead went to college, then the pros.  His troubles so far this season are probably attributable to disregarding my advice.

I was waiting for my ex-wife to get off a plane at SFO (this was when you could stand at the gate and wait for people) and Jerry Garcia was the first person off the plane. There were people waiting for him and they hustled him out the door and into a limo.  He looked like shit.  This was about 1993, 1994.

I interviewed a band called Contocook Line in Richmond, Virginia, back when I was a sometime music writer.  The drummer of that band, who then went by Jonah West, later started calling himself Steve West and joined another band called Pavement. I don't remember much about him because we did the interview in a bar and we were all a little drunk.  Good band, though.  I also interviewed Dave Brockie from Gwar at their warehouse and he wasn't in character and was just a regular, down-to-earth guy.  He had just gotten a NeXT computer (or however you spell it) and was really into it.

I met former 49ers quarterback Steve Young once and it's a really funny story, actually, but I can't figure out a way to tell it without giving away too many personal details, so you'll have to take my word for it.

I ran into Willie Brown at Tosca once and shook his hand.  It was unbelievably rough, like the hand of a manual laborer.  He was super nice and personable.

I brushed up against Uma Thurman in a very crowded bar in West Hollywood in the late 90's.  She was so unbelievably rail-thin you could almost see her internal organs. On another night at this same bar, one of the chicks from Melrose Place and her dbag British boyfriend were sitting at our table because there was nowhere else to sit and they made a very studious point of ignoring us and our friends.

There are probably a bunch of others I can't remember right now.  What's your brush with fame story?

Here are your prop bets for this year's Super Bowl

Phil Simms says something stupid within first 10 minutes   3-1
Within the first half                                                           10-9
At some point during the game                                         OFF
Someone at your Super Bowl party loudly proclaims 
they "don't watch football"                                                9-5
It's a girl                                                                           3-2
This is in San Francisco                                                    11-10
Akers misses a field goal                                                  PICK
Daisy posts a picture of herself crying                               2-1
CBS shows split-screen shot of Harbaugh brothers          5-3
Player mentions God in postgame interview                      1-10
Jim Nantz recounts Ray Lewis murder story                     50-1
Beyonce suffers wardrobe malfunction                             YOU WISH
Ravens lose; hacky headline writer uses "Nevermore"       3-2
Randy Moss scores touchdown                                        4-1
Randy Moss is insufferable in some way                            9-6
I am insufferable in some way                                            OFF

Catfish the TV Show: Mantei & Lennay

[References: the amazing Mantei Te'o story / Catfish the TV Show]

SCENE 1: Nev and Max are in a Hampton Inn in an undisclosed location. Max is holding a video camera and is filming Nev on his laptop.

NEV: OK, let's see what kind of emails we have this week.  Whoa, hold on, this one looks interesting.  "Dear Nev, I am a Heisman Trophy finalist and one of the most celebrated defensive college football players of my generation.  I am a dead lock high first round NFL draft pick.  You'd think I'd be carried away in a pussy tornado like that cow in 'Twister,' but as it turns out the only chick I'm into is online and I've never met her.  She says her name is Lennay and she looks pretty hot from the pictures."

MAX: Wow.  What's a "Heisman Trophy"?

NEV: It's a sports thing.  Never mind, you wouldn't understand.  We should go see Mantei and see if we can help him.

SCENE 2: [Caption: "South Bend, IA".]  Nev and Max are meeting with Mantei Te'o. They show him the results of their research.

NEV: So you see, Mantei, it seems like there's no Lennay at all.  In fact, it looks like the Lennay accounts are all run by a guy named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.

MANTEI: Tuiasosopo?  Any relation to forgettable Oakland Raiders backup QB Marques Tuiasosopo?

MAX: What's a "backup QB"?

NEV: (to Max) It's a sports person. Don't worry about it.  {to Mantei) As a matter of fact, Mantei, yes, they're cousins, apparently.  Do you want to try and meet Lennay and see what happens?

MANTEI: I thought you said she wasn't real.

NEV: Well, yeah, of course, that's obvious to even the most casual observer.  I mean, did anyone believe that former Miss Teen USA/meth freak/Celebrity Rehab vet/sex addict Kari Ann Peniche was having an online affair with that dork with bad teeth in rural New York? Of course not.  That guy got totally lucky, though.  At least the person he was actually corresponding with wasn't morbidly obese.  Anyway, point is, let's play along because we have 47 minutes to fill.

MANTEI: I don't follow.

NEV: Never mind.

MAX: Let's go for smoothies.

SCENE 3: Mantei and Nev arrive at a house in a rural setting, followed by Max and a camera crew.  They go to the door and ring the doorbell.  There is no answer.

MAX: What should we do?

MANTEI: How about trying the other door?

NEV: I don't know if that will work.

MAX: Wait, here comes someone.

The GHOST OF FRANK GIFFORD appears from around the corner of the house, followed by the GHOSTS OF THE 2005 MINNESOTA VIKINGS.

MANTEI: Wow, Ghost of Frank Gifford!  Are you the one who was pretending to be Lennay?

GHOST OF FRANK GIFFORD: The fuck? What? No, I don't know anything about that dadgum Internet.  We're just here to tell you this will blow over.  Hell, I banged a sky waitress in a Midtown hotel and it was all caught on tape and do you think anyone remembers that?

GHOSTS OF 2005 MINNESOTA VIKINGS: Yeah, we were at a boat sex party that was so dope it has its own Wikipedia entry.  Fred Smoot can't even get arrested in Minneapolis now. 

MANTEI: So no bigs? I'm all good?

GHOST OF FRANK GIFFORD: Sure, kiddo.  Stick to 3-D chicks next time.  And have fun in Cleveland, you poor bastard.

TK's Day Trips: Top of Mt. Tamalpais

Mount Tamalpais is that big thing you can see in Marin on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was formed by geological stuff and volcanoes in 1953. It's 18,000 feet tall and is made of solid lead.

This past Sunday I decided it was time for another day trip. I'm not drinking right now, like you needed to hear me say that again for the 1,000,000th time, so I'm all bright-eyed and full of energy on Sundays instead of laying on the couch and softly moaning and drinking ginger ale so I dragged my wife out of the house against her will and forced her to come with me.

Mt. Tam State Park features some pretty great trails if you're into hiking and snakes. We skipped all that bullshit and drove straight up to the top. It's kind of a long drive because it's a really narrow, twisty road. Not a good idea if you're hungover or you'll surely barf. Especially if you're in the backseat. Don't question this; it actually happened to a passenger of mine in the mid-90's. Pulled over and they yakked. True story.

(Also, true story: I got married once on Mt. Tam. Not this time, a different time. I'll tell you all about it some day.)

Anyway so you drive up and up and wind around and around and then you pop out at a parking lot at the East Peak. You have to pay to park there but it's cool, it's worth it. There's a snack bar and restrooms and usually a European or two smoking even though smoking is technically illegal in the park.

So then you hike up to the top. (Oh, brief interjection: every time I go to the top of Mt. Tam it is significantly warmer than ground level. This is because the top is closer to the sun or something. No, not that, but all kidding aside, it's always weirdly warm up there. Something about temperature inversions or something. I'm sure one of you Junior Scientists will be on this.)

The first part of the hike up is this pleasant wooden plankway or whatever you call it, but then that ends and it's just a dirt/rock path for most of the way. Still, it's not a bad hike. Maybe 15 minutes to the top. Then you get up there and BWWWAAAAAAAHHHHHH look at that view.


Kinda hard to make out, I know, but on the left there you can see Angel Island and Belvedere and Tiburon and in the middle is Sausalito and in the distance is Our Great City. Here's a closeup on that:


Looking more to the left we can see more of Marin and the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and also some dude who was chilling on the rocks and journaling or something annoying like that.


It was hot up there. HOT. So we hung out for a while and then we had to leave and drive back so I could see the second half of the 49ers game.

By special request

I had a tiny bit of indie clout until I sold completely out

Then we met an agent from Burbank

Signed a multi-album deal and looked around for songs to steal

Our credibility went in the tank

Played some frat rock for some bros as if we weren't one of those

Our songs are vapid but we didn't care

Sucking at the corporate teat, all the money was a treat

We'll play whatever gets us on the air

We are Train, we are bland

What passes these days for a band

Suburban Moms, we're what you seek

Won't you save us Walnut Creek?

(For reference.)

PG&E will not stop until we are dead

You know what I'd like from my electricity and gas provider? A steady stream of electricity and gas. Most of you probably get that from your provider. However, since I live in Northern California, my provider, Pacific Gas & Electric, has a different priority:

KILLING US ALL.

Last night PG&E fucked up and it just happened to be during a nationally televised broadcast of "Monday Night Football," between the 49ers and Steelers.



WHOOPS. Maybe PG&E didn't realize that everyone could see. Anyway, no one was killed, apparently, so TOUGH SHIT PG&E.

Just within the past year and a half or so, PG&E killed eight people in a gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno. They just admitted liability for that, after exploring the option of possibly blaming the victims. It's like they have a secret lab where they sit around and try to think of ways they could be more evil or at least appear that way.

Then you have the manhole explosions, which are, at this point, so routine that they barely make the news any more.

Not content to confine their murderous ways to simple explosions, which do seem kind of dated and 19th-century, PG&E then moved on to Smart Meters, which, we are told, will kill us all with radiation. Irradiating us all seems like a much more efficient way for PG&E to eliminate us, plus it's not as noisy and steam-punky as exploding manholes.

(J/K abt Smart Meters, I'm sure they're totally safe and whatever.)

And when they're not busy trying to kill us, PG&E also has constant problems with delivering power. I mean, every time it rains, the power goes out somewhere. Is it that way everywhere, or just here?

ANYWAY, PG&E, if you really want to make an impact, step up your electrocution game. Seems like you've got unlimited electricity, so why not use it? You could take out 100, 150 people a day, probably. And those nuclear plants! They're not gonna melt down on their own, PG&E. Blow one of those up and we could start talking Fresno-sized victim counts.

I'm already going to hell, so....

The theme of today's post is RELIGION. Oh boy.

ITEM NUMBER ONE: Why do people hate Tim Tebow?

(I just realized that not everyone may know who Tim Tebow is. Tim Tebow is an American footballer generally considered to be of average-to-poor skill at his position, which is quarterback for the Denver Broncos. Previous to this, he was considered to be of superior skill at his position in college, which was quarterback for the Florida Gators. Some people are really good in college and not very good in the NFL. Anyway, Tebow is also known for vehemently and publicly practicing his religion, including frequently kneeling on the field to thank God for a successful football outcome and/or to beseech his help at a crucial moment. Despite his seeming lack of skill, the Denver Broncos keep winning games that they shouldn't win. This is more due to Denver's excellent defense than anything Tim Tebow is doing, but quarterbacks always get more attention than defenses. Back to our story.)

Oh, look, Deadspin already answered this question: Why People Who Hate Tim Tebow Hate Tim Tebow.

I'll nutshell it for you: Because anyone other than Tebow in Tebow's position would be EXPECTED to succeed, but somehow, for Tebow, it's a case of God pulling the strings for a gutsy believer who is somehow triumphing despite being a valiant underdog.

Athletes giving credit to God is nothing new, but Tebow sort of takes it to a whole new level with his very public displays of faith and whatnot. Let's leave aside the obvious question - with something like 200 billion galaxies in the universe, each containing 200-300 billion stars, there must be trillions or quadrillions of planets, and many of those must have life, so why does God take a personal interest in the outcomes of sporting events on one of those planets and, moreover, why does He not seem to care so much about cricket or curling? - and instead ponder WHY IT'S NOT GOD'S FAULT WHEN TEAMS LOSE. The way I see it, if you give God credit for winning a game (or doing well on a law school final, or getting your lost wallet back (actually, that one was St. Anthony, not God, but they work in the same office), then the Big Guy gets the blame when things go south.

How great would that be? Imagine the sideline reporter interviewing the kicker who missed the game-winning field goal: "Well, I lined it up perfectly, hit it dead on, and it sailed wide right. God really fucked us on this one. Thanks for nothing, God. Zero for you in the collection plate tomorrow. Winners get paid, not losers."

SIGH. I'm sure there's a Deep Theological Reason why it's not God's fault but I don't really care.

ITEM NUMBER TWO: R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens, one of the best atheists of all time.



Like I said to someone last night, I didn't always agree with Hitchens - on his strong support for the Iraq War, for example - I always wished I could write like him.

Hank and the First Amendment: A Primer

To no one's great surprise, ESPN and Hank Williams have parted ways after he compared Obama and Boehner playing golf to Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu playing golf. Just as well; we've been subjected to that retarded "Are you ready for some football" song for 20 FUCKING YEARS. About damn time to shake things up.

Anyway, Hank immediately played the Victim Card:

"After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision," he wrote in a statement on his website. "By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run."

No.

Here's what the First Amendment actually says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

First phrase: CONGRESS shall make no law. Not ESPN shall make no law. The First Amendment is designed to keep the GOVERNMENT from telling you what you can and can't say, not ESPN or any other basic cable network. Or your employer. Or your Mom. Or any other non-governmental body. Hank Williams Jr. and ESPN had a mutually beneficial business relationship. When ESPN decided that it would no longer be beneficial, they cancelled it. I have no idea what kind of contract ESPN and Bocephus had, but I'm sure it didn't contain a provision saying that "ESPN will not terminate its relationship with Williams Jr. because of any retarded thing he says in public." But there's not First Amendment involvement here at all.

(Of course, over the years, courts have added a number of exceptions to the seemingly plain "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." It's illegal to threaten to kill someone, for example, even though that's a law abridging the freedom of speech. But that's neither here nor there.)

Oh, one more thing: I fully support Hank's right to say whatever the fucks he wants. If he wants to say Obama faked the moon landing and is secretly a Chinese spy, go for it. I'm just saying that ESPN firing him has nothing to do with the First Amendment, despite what he says in his oddly capitalized email.

In which TK enters the craft brewing business

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

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

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

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

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

What are your Panhandler Rules?

If you're like me (and there is almost no chance of this, I realize that, it's just an expression), on your daily perambulations through the City, you encounter a variety of panhandlers, homeless and otherwise. As with most things in my life, I'm often perplexed about how to handle this fraught situation and so I'm croudsourcing this issue to find out what it is you do.

As I work in the Civic Center area, which is part of/maybe just immediately adjacent the Tenderloin, I see some of the same panhandlers every day.

There is the oddly well-put-together woman who I've written about before who posts up at the corner of Grove and Larkin during commute hours (she's there roughly 7:30-9 am and then 4 to about 6 pm) silently holding a sheaf of Street Sheets and who doesn't look homeless or even really troubled in any way; in fact, she would not be out of place waiting on you in a diner or something. NOT HOLDING THAT AGAINST HER; I'm just saying, it's kinda weird.

(I wrote that prior post about her in 2009. She's still out there, basically every day. I continue to be really curious about what her deal is but I really don't want to stop and talk to her because I pass her every day, usually twice a day, and I don't want to set up a thing where I have to stop and talk to her every day. It has nothing to do with her being homeless; I don't want to stop and talk to anyone twice a day. I'm not one of those people who hangs around their corner store trading neighborhood gossip or that kind of thing.)

(OH SNAP I just looked at the Google Street View for Grove & Larkin and thought I saw her but it's just some chick with a coffee. Goes to show how normal she looks.)

There's the Bearded Disheveled Guy Who's Always Reading a Paperback Book. He can be found in Civic Center Station pretty much all the time. I've actually given him money before.

There's a whole crowd that hangs out around the Main Library. One of them is a guy who wears Rollerblades all the time and skates around passing a football back and forth with one of his comrades. In all fairness, I've never seen him ask anyone for money, so maybe he just likes to wear Rollerblades and throw the rock around and hang out by the library.

UNRELATED: Check out the cool Street View Dog on the corner of Larkin and Golden Gate! AWWWWW, PUPPY!!!!

And so on. My point is, when you see your Regular Panhandlers, what do you do? Do you give them money?

Or I guess, what are your usual Giving Money to Panhandler Rules? I mean, in SF, you probably get hit up for money 5 to 12 times a day unless you're Richie Rich and live in Pacific Heights and drive your Volvo to work and your secretary brings lunch to you. So what are your giving money rules? When do you toss a buck at a panhandler?

(RELATED STORY - I remember reading somewhere years ago about an invitation to some fancy-ass party in a part of town where there were obviously panhandlers and the invitation asked guests to not give money to the "outdoorsmen." Outdoorsmen! FAVORITE HOMELESS EUPHEMISM.)

Have a nice holiday weekend at Burning Man or whatever it is you do. I guess if you're at Burning Man you're not reading this anyway.

Also, I'm still on jury duty but hopefully only for another week and then everything will be back to normal.

Also, we're trying out Boxing Room tonight and I'll totally tell you if it's good or what. Smoked Chicken & Andouille Gumbo! FUCK YEAH. Speaking of restaurant websites, THANK YOU FOR NOT AUTOPLAYING DIXIELAND JAZZ ON YOUR WEBSITE BOXING ROOM. I KNOW THAT MUST HAVE BEEN NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST.

OK, I'm done now.