The One-Stop Pokemon Go Thinkpiece

Jenna Ashworth hadn’t been out of her house for over 13 years.  Then, last Sunday, something amazing happened.  “I downloaded Pokemon Go,” she says, “and it just happened.  I was outside before I knew it.  I know this sounds crazy, but Charmander cured my agoraphobia.”

But Pokemon Go could be even more meaningful than that.  Pokemon Go is actually a sign of the demise of late-stage capitalism.  Freed from the vertically integrated model that delivers products from manufacturers to customers, bleeding edge companies will no doubt use PG-type technology to connect directly with perfectly targeted consumers.  Why keep a warehouse full of stuff nobody wants when you can deliver exactly one thing to one person who wants it?

Besides that, Pokemon Go is a dramatic symbol of our classist society.  The “haves” – freed by wealth and status from having to work regular hours at a menial job – are free to roam the landscapes that we all share, collecting choice Pokemons while the rest of us must make do in the little time we have.  The rich will loot the Pokeballs from the nearest Pokestop just like they looted the Capitalgainsballs from the Treasurystop.

One silver lining, though: Pokemon Go will end racism. 

That is, unless Pokemon Go fails to listen to its players, who long for a better way to connect.  Millennials are lonely and adrift and long for meaningful interaction.  No, Millennials are fine and just want to be left alone.  They want to catch a Pokemon – and then catch up with their friends on Snapchat.  No, Whatsapp.  No, they’re building and using telegraph machines.  No, they have retreated to caves and eat bison now. 

Pokemon Go will finally spell the end for laptops.

Pokemon Go’s first victim will be Marissa Mayer.

Pokemon Go means that the Trump campaign is dead in the water.  

Is Pokemon Go the new Zika?

I posted a snarky response to an Airbnb ad on Twitter. You won't believe what happened next. Or you probably will totally believe it, I don't know.

Last night "Airbnb Action," which I assume is some political lobbying arm/whitewashing patrol of Airbnb, caused a tweet to appear in my timeline, proving conclusively that Twitter has no idea how to target ads.  Me being me (i.e., a snarky asshole), I felt moved to respond.

Har har. Obviously (if you've been following the issue), the reason that the Board of Supres is "pushing new rules" (that is, "enacting legislation according to their City-afforded capabilities") is that the current enforcement mechanisms are comically ineffectual.  Current law requires everyone who rents their place out on Airbnb to register with the city.  So far, "roughly 1,400 of the estimated 7,000 or more residents who rent their homes and rooms have done so, the city estimates." SO, first of all, no one is trying "2 prevent homse sharing;" we were told we didn't need Prop F because the current system works and now the current system definitely doesn't work.  Even the fucking CEO OF AIRBNB didn't bother to piddle with the little city registration system.  Why would anyone else be a sucker and follow the law?

HENCE MY SNARK.

Then some dog got all up in my business.

I guess this means that since Prop F was defeated, Airbnb is now free to do anything they want.  BASED ON OUR NEW POLICY, AIRBNB CAN NOW RAID YOUR FRIDGE ONCE PER WEEK.  PLEASE LEAVE YOUR DOOR UNLOCKED.  THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN.

It went downhill from here.

BAD DOG!  First of all, he or she didn't answer my question.  I asked what we should do when the vast majority of Airbnb hosts are not in compliance.  The response was "No the STR office. #duh They are the police."  I suppose that means we should just let the STR (Short Term Rental, btw) office handle it?  That actually makes sense if you're an Airbnb host and you don't want to bother following the law. #duh.  By the time the STR cops catch up to you, the Earth will have been consumed by the Sun and Airbnb hosts on Titan will be advertising "STUNNING RING VIEWS!!!!"

As if it couldn't devolve any lower, the sad denoument:

Of course. My opinion that Airbnb hosts follow the fucking law necessarily means that I support vandalism.  Also, that is some shitty lettering.  Maybe something like this instead?

The real stupidity about the whole thing is that, based on the link to the Airbnb advertised on Dog's Twitter page, it appears that Dog rents out a room in Dog's house.  I basically have no problem with that (within some limits).  What I have a problem with is someone taking an entire home or apartment off the market and converting it into an illegal, full-time hotel.  Like the one on my block - a 3-bedroom apartment that used to be occupied by 3 tenants and which is now occupied, at $300 a night, by a rotating cast of jackoffs smoking on the stoop.  Or with building owners evicting tenants so they can rent out the rooms on Airbnb.

Is Airbnb solely responsible for the housing crisis in SF? Of course not.  Partially responsible?  Of course. Are rhetorical questions the best mode of making an argument? Not even close.

I need a ruling on this restaurant issue

SCENE: A bustling, fairly trendy restaurant in San Francisco.  The kind of place with artisanal cocktails that all have one ingredient you have no idea what it is and waitresses with full sleeves.  The Wife and I are out on one of our very very very very very very rare nights out together.  Baby Beyonce - who is now Toddler Beyonce I guess or even Kid Beyonce, because she's almost 3 and speaks in full sentences and has opinions about things - is being babysat by her great-aunt and great-uncle.

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS: Having drinks, perusing the menu.  I pick the following option:

OK!  I definitely know what beef is.  I know what braised means.  I kinda know what kohlrabi is - some kind of cabbage thing? Hey, the Times is ON IT.  I know what lollipops and kale are, never had them together, but what the hell, I like them both so it couldn't be that bad.  I even sort of know what bagna cauda is!  It's like a vegetable sauce you dip shit in, like a less-fun fondue.  OK, let's do it.

After the obligatory deviled eggs (seriously, if you have a restaurant and you don't have a deviled egg appetizer you might as well just fucking send your address in to Eater's "Restaurants That Closed" because you are FUCKED), entrees arrive.  It looks fine!  It's a little bit of beef with some green stuff sprinkled around it.

Now, of course, like all restaurants in San Francisco of the aught-teens, it is PITCH BLACK inside and so I'm basically eating blind but I take a couple of bites and it's fine, and then suddenly I take a bite and BOOM my mouth is full of fish taste.  ACK ACK WHY IS THERE FISH ON THIS.  I didn't ask for fish and don't want fish.  And this is like really sharp fishy fish.  Ugh.  My life is ruined.

The Wife sees me convulsing and examines the dish with her superior eyesight.  "It's an anchovy," she says.  WHY GOD WHY.  Why have you cursed my otherwise satisfactory dish with the loathsome presence of anchovies, the broccoli of the sea?

THE DISPUTE: Do I say something to the waitress or not?  Something like, "Excuse me, but I think some mental deficient in the kitchen accidentally sprayed stale fish all over my otherwise edible beef" or "Excuse me, I think someone's pizza from 1975 is missing something" or "Excuse me, please get this the fuck out of my sight."  The Wife says no, so I accede to her wisdom and say nothing.

(Further research conducted IMMEDIATELY after leaving reveals that bagna cauda "is made with garlic, anchovies, olive oil, butter, and in some parts of the region cream." Which, fine, mix them in the BC if you must, but that doesn't mean drape them all over my meat like a fish blanket.)

I guess I should have said something but I'm always like who does that?  I don't want to be that guy.

Anyway, have a good weekend.

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.

THREAT LEVEL: NERD

I know what you've been thinking.  "TK, I'm already bored of governors threatening to kill refugees who might stray across their state line.  Can you find me any stupider reaction to the terrorist attacks in France?"

OF COURSE I CAN.

From Erick Erickson, prominent right-wing radio host:

An adult wrote that.

The central thesis of this prose poem is that it's too dangerous to see Star Wars because, I gather (although it's not explicit) the Administration can't keep terrorists from doing something involving metal inside a theater showing a Star Wars film.

There are many points here, but just to start:

1. People do, in fact, get shot in movie theaters.  Just not by terrorists from other countries.  

2. There are somewhere around 270 million guns in America. There are around 2.7 million federal employees,  That's only ONE member of the Administration per ONE HUNDRED GUNS. How's one dude gonna keep his eye on a hundred guns?  Can't be done.  If someone wants to shoot you, no, the Administration can't really protect you.  Sorry.

3. Since 2012, 16 people have been killed violently in American movie theaters, 12 of them in one incident (committed by a native-born US citizen who bought his arsenal of guns and ammunition legally, I might add).  That's about the number of people killed in motor vehicle accidents in 5 hours.  The real "threat scenario" is driving to the fucking theater.

4. Nobody gives a shit if you see Star Wars or not. 

Jesus, these people.

Proposition F isn't really about Proposition F at all

Proposition F - the anti-Airbnb ballot measure, for lack of a better pithy descriptor - has become the shitstorm of this election. It's turned comments sections from trash into Superfund-site-level toxic sludge, made Nextdoor even more hilariously unhinged, and filled everyone's mailboxes with the papertrash equivalent of 3 Examiners a day.  It hasn't helped that Airbnb is financing an anti-F campaign that makes the Willie Horton ad look like a Harvard debate club salon.

Forced to do what?  To report to the government when you're sleeping in your own bed, according to this not-at-all fearmongering and hilarious No on F ad.

The actual proposition tinkers with existing regulations in more or less minor ways - reducing the total number of nights you can rent out your place from 90 to 75, and allowing neighbors to sue you if they think you're violating the terms, along with some other stuff - but to hear the anti-Prop F people, you'd think it was the Apocalypse combined with the Cuban Revolution and now everyone will have to leave their houses and let a poor move in.  They also say the current system is working, which is patently bullshit, since we have a newly-operating full-time Airbnb hotel 2 doors down from our house and no one's doing shit about that.

As you can probably tell, I'm lowkey pro-Prop-F, but it doesn't make any difference because Airbnb's Gigantic Fun House of Money combined with a total voter turnout of about 48 people, most of whom work for Airbnb, pretty much ensures that they've got this one in the bag.

Still, it's become obvious to me this isn't actually about the proposition itself.  It's about two views of a changing San Francisco.  A lot of people (me, to some extent, included) see San Francisco changing quickly and, to their minds, unpleasantly, and Airbnb is a very visible, very loud manifestation of that.  Remember that nice family that lived down the street?  They had to move to Fairfield, and now their place has a kegerator instead of a playpen and it's like Phi Delt is recreating the Fall of the Roman Empire there every weekend.  To this group, Airbnb is a huge shining symbol of the New New San Francisco - Our Garbage City - where the tech companies shit all over it and do anything they want because there's a perfectly good city government that they paid good money for.  To them, Airbnb and Uber and all the rest are the New Boss, swaggering around town and telling them exactly how it's going to be now and why your way sucked and the new way is better and just shut up and look at your phone.  There's a velvet rope in front of Bi-Rite now, and it snakes through the Mission to the front doors of Vida.

The others side is a strange agglomeration of super-libertarians who are all IT'S MY PROPERTY I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT and Tech Kids who think anything with a .com at the end shits out cotton candy and genuinely well-intentioned people who really do use Airbnb to rent out an extra room once in a while and don't understand why everyone is so pissed off about that.

So this isn't really a vote about whether or not you should be able to rent out your place for an extra 15 days or whether the busybody neighbor is actually going to get their shit together and calm the voices raging in their head enough to sue you, it's about fear of what this city's becoming or may have already become.  This observation probably isn't unique or even interesting, but maybe helps explain why everyone is so fucking worked up.  Maybe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Food-Trucks require an extra permit.

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

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

1. The Lineup

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

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

2. Ticket prices

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

3. They shut down the whole park for weeks

via Twitter celeb Miche:

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

4. Muni sucks

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

5. Literally get off my lawn

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

6. The Noise

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

The best thing you can do is FLEE THE AREA.

What do we want? The same crappy Walgreens! When do we want it? Yesterday!

Behold, the corner of 16th and Mission, a utopia on Earth where happy denizens lead cheerful rewarding lives:

lol j/k.  It's actually just a shitty Walgreens ("Hope this store goes out of business soon...  It is really like shopping in hell") and a Burger King.

Along comes Maximus Real Estate Partners.  "Hey you guys hey you guys we've got an idea," they say.  "How about instead of a rundown Walgreens and a BK we put up a 10-story apartment building with 345 units of housing?  You guys are always talking about how housing is so expensive, so how about we make more of it?  And plus instead of the usual requirement of 40 below market rate units, we put in 90?  Win-win, right?"

NOPE.  You're in San Francisco.

First of all, I might suggest that it might have been a good idea to create a subsidiary for this project alone with a name other than "MAXIMUS REAL ESTATE."  Maximus Real Estate sounds like an evil monolith that wants to evict your Mom.  How about something a little more PR-friendly, like "Daisy Homes" or "Smiling Face Emoji Group"?  Just really anything other than MAXIMUS.

Anyway, people are so mad:

“If Maximus builds these condos on 16th and Mission, there will be massive gentrification in this neighborhood,” housing activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca told a gathering crowd. “New people who move in will call the police to get rid of the poor people”

Dude, have you been to the Mission in like the last 3 years?  The Massive Gentrification ship sailed like in 2011.  Now the billionaires are gentrifying out the millionaires.  We're on like 5th-wave gentrification.  Maximus is offering to build 90 BELOW MARKET RATE UNITS.  Right now, the only market rate unit at 16th & Mission is the bench by the BART entrance.

Not good enough for Mr. Mecca:

As Tommi Avicolli Mecca, of the Housing Rights Committee and Plaza 16, said at Monday’s protest: “There’s no community benefits that will make us support this project, all we want is 100 percent affordable housing.”

This is lunacy.  This is like getting surgery to replace a heart valve and telling the surgeon, "As long as you're in there, please also do some plastic surgery and make me look like George Clooney."  Then the doctor says "I can't do Clooney, but I can give you Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park," and you say "NO!  CLOONEY OR NOTHING" and rip off the gown and storm out of the hospital.  I've got news for you, son.  Goldblum gets mad tail.  You just fucked yourself.

So here's my counter.  Right now, the building is scheduled to be 345 units.  You want 100% affordable.  OK, new plan.  You get 345 affordable units, and they get to build a 100-story building with a total of 1380 units.  Everybody wins!

HEADLINES ARE ALWAYS MISLEADING!!!! I mean, don't believe everything you read.

Have you heard about MEASLES PARTIES!!!??!!  It's all the rage in clueless Marin County, where Uber-privileged parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are INTENTIONALLY exposing them to measles so they'll get the disease and be done with it!

It made for a great story because it played on a current fear (measles spreading as a result of non-vaccinated kids) and allowed us to look down on a privileged group (dopey Marin parents who don't vaccinate).

It smelled like bullshit from the beginning to me.  Here's the Ur-story where it all started, "Health Officials Discourage ‘Measles Parties’."  And here's our key section:

She was approached recently by a friend who knew her kids were unvaccinated. The friend offered to help set up a play date with another child who was sick.

“She said, ‘I know someone who has the measles, would you like to be connected with them?’” Schiffman said.

That's it.  The "reporter" made no effort to contact this mysterious "friend" or otherwise verify this story.  Instead, she just ran with it.  Measles parties!  Makes for a great story.  Of course it all turned out to be BS.

In other PANIC!!!!! news, there was this tweet from SF Weekly:

Yikes! Hemlock Tavern's days may be numbered http://t.co/JKo3b5EX83
— SF Weekly (@SFWeekly) February 10, 2015

I guess all our days are numbered, so it's not really news.  Eventually the Sun will expand to envelop our planet and the Hemlock and every other venue will host its last show.  But for a music scene reeling from the loss of venue after venue, this seemed like terrible news!  Unless you read the article.

Anthony Bedard, the Hemlock's longtime booker (not to mention a staple of the city's punk scene and the man behind the genius Twitter account Folder Rock) echoed that statement in an email to SF Weekly. "The Hemlock has an ironclad lease that runs through the summer of 2021," he wrote. "After that, it's within the realm of possibility that the building owner may opt to not renew our lease." 

So the Hemlock itself foresees ongoing live music into 2021.  But I guess "Yikes! Hemlock Tavern may only have live music for the next 6 years" isn't as catchy a headline.

On a lighter note, and not to mercilessly rag on SF Weekly, but this:

Only in San Francisco: A doggie fashion show http://t.co/6GRdu9i0Hr
— SF Weekly (@SFWeekly) February 9, 2015

"Only in San Francisco" used to mean something. Like when you saw something so outrageous or unconventional you couldn't imagine it existing in any other city.  Like, "Oh, I'm off to my Vegan Polyamorous Texas Hold 'Em Meditation Group." "Only in San Francisco!"

A doggie fashion show is the opposite of "Only in San Francisco."  Not because it's so normie it makes clip-on earrings look like scarrification, but because they have doggie fashion shows in Pittsburgh, PA, Scottsdale, AZ, Providence RI, Somerville, Massacusetts, and probably any other city with at least two Pomeranians and two crazy people who like to dress them up.  A tech douche fashion show might be "Only in San Francisco," but a doggie fashion show most certainly is not.

Rain: The Movie

INT MAYOR'S SITUATION ROOM. A darkened room with huge video screens, all displaying a map with a frightening orange and green blob heading directly for San Francisco.  Uniformed men and women rush around, barking into phones and tapping at keyboards.

MAYOR bursts in, following by Chief of Staff LLOYD.

MAYOR

OK, what have we got?  Give it to me straight.

General BRICKS turns to face MAYOR.

GENERAL BRICKS

I'm afraid it doesn't look good, Sir.  As you can see, it's headed right for us.

MAYOR

What do you mean, "it"?  Don't sugarcoat it for me, General.  Give it to me straight.

GENERAL BRICKS

Well, Sir, it's...it's rain.

MAYOR's face is a mask of shock and horror.

LLOYD

"Rain," General?  You can't be serious.

GENERAL BRICKS

I'm dead serious, Lloyd.  It's rain.  And it's bearing down on us like a 50,000 ton freight train full of liquid water. Deadly, liquid water.

LLOYD

Is that what rain is, General?  Water?  

GENERAL BRICKS

That's what we think.  Water, but....from the sky.

MAYOR

What the hell are you talking about, General?  Water from the sky?  What kind of madness is this?

GENERAL BRICKS

I'm sorry, but our intelligence indicates it's true.  Water falls from the sky and collects on the ground and makes things wet.

LLOYD

Technical question, General.  If you were to look up at this "rain," and you had your mouth open, could it fill your lungs and drown you?

GENERAL BRICKS

Honestly, Lloyd, I don't know.  We don't have a lot of answers.

MAYOR

Goddamit, we're wasting time.  We've got to warn the citizens about this "rain."

GENERAL BRICKS

The worst part of this, Mayor, is that it may already be too late.

EXT. PLAYGROUND - DAY

Children run and play on the various playground equipment.  We see JOHNNY jump from the monkey bars and land on his feet, smiling delightedly.

JOHNNY

This is the best day ever!

From above, we see the shadow of a cloud move across the playground.  A drop of water splashes onto JOHNNY's head.  And another, and another.  

JOHNNY

Mommy? What's happening?

FADE OUT.

[OK, I know, two rain posts in a row.  But what am I supposed to do?  This storm was the Biggest Story of the Decade.  It would be like Walter Cronkite doing a newscast in 1969 and not mentioning Vietnam.  The movie poster picture I stole from Kate Scott's Twitter feed.  Thanks, Kate Scott.]

THE FORECAST IS FOR RAIN

Anchor Drone (chuckling): Thanks for the report, Kenny.  It's nice to know not every police beating has to be a sad story.  Now let's talk to meteorologist Skip Hapless at Weather Center 10000 who's tracking a fast-moving storm heading for our area!

Skip Hapless: HAVE YOU MADE YOUR PEACE WITH GOD?

Anchor Drone: What's that, Skip?

Skip Hapless: ARE YOU PURIFIED?  ARE YOU READY TO STAND BEFORE THE LORD?  HAVE YOU CLEANED YOUR GUTTERS?

Anchor Drone: What does the storm look like, Skip?

Skip Hapless: It will make Armageddon look like a free cone at Coldstone Creamery.  Lashing sheets of rain will pelt and destroy wildlife.  Your loved ones will cling to trees and pray for death.  THIS WILL BE A MAJOR WEATHER EVENT.

Anchor Drone: How much rain can we expect, Skip?

Skip Hapless; IF ONLY NUMBERS WENT THAT HIGH. POURING, GUSHING RAIN. MORE WATER THAN YOU COULD IMAGINE. ALL IS LOST.

Anchor Drone: Sounds like this might affect the morning commute!

Skip Hapless: WHAT COMMUTE. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND. COMMUTE TO HELL.  WE WILL ALL BE COMMUTING TO HELL ON A ROADWAY OF LIQUID DEATH.

Anchor Drone: That was Skip Hapless with the weather.

Watch me go full Comic Book Guy on this clip from Parenthood

Parenthood is a soap opera for grownups about members of an extended family that supposedly live in the Bay Area.  It's also pretty clearly shot in LA, and because The Wife is now extraordinarily tired of me shouting at the TV "THAT'S NOT SAN FRANCISCO!!!  THOSE PEOPLE JUST PARKED IN FRONT OF THEIR HOUSE LIKE IT WAS NO BIG THING!!! THEY'RE OUTSIDE AT NIGHT IN T-SHIRTS!!!!," I'll have to take it to the Internet again.  *shakes fist*

In the last episode, two of the characters supposedly are going to see a band at the Elbo Room, which is an actual real place in SF (for a little while longer, anyway).  (You can watch the scene here; fast forward to about 27:20.) This is what the actual Elbo Room, which is on Valencia, looks like:

Photo via Pinballnews.com, which is a real thing and had the best picture of the Elbo Rom I could find after looking for 35 seconds

And in the Make Believe Fantasy World of Parenthood, this is what the Elbo Room looks like:

Huh.  Not bad, actually!  They sorta got the sign font right and even included the corner doorway.

But look at this, down the side of the club:

Can you see the Transamerica Pyramid from Sycamore and Valencia?  I don't think you can.  Also, guess what, Sycamore Street?  You are now served by a cable car!  (It's slightly visible lower left, and you can see the tracks there.)  DING DING!  As all establishing shots in San Francisco must begin, a cable car passes through at the beginning of the scene.

Then it goes from merely inaccurate to absurd.  As one of the characters, Crosby, approaches the door, he is searched by a bouncer wearing a headset.

A bouncer wearing a headset.  At Elbo Room.

The bouncer reaches into his jacket and pulls out Crosby's "weed."

The idea that the doorman at Elbo Room would (1) search someone's jacket pockets, (2) pull out a baggie of marijuana, and (3) not let the person enter Elbo Room carrying said marijuana is about as likely as the Elbo Room having a VIP lounge where professional athletes order bottles of Ace of Spades and make it rain.  Any two-bit stoner who can roll a joint has a medical marijuana card.  Plus is weed even illegal any more?

Crosby protests that all he wants to do is "burn a little leaf in the toilet."  We're done here.

World Series Game 4, EXPRESS LANE EDITION: I did not see that coming

AND LO THE LORD SAYETH UNTO THEM

The Giants aren't dead!  They're not even sick.

This is coming from a man who texted someone last night in the fourth inning "This series is over." So grain of salt anything you hear from me.

Last night the Giants were down 4-1 and looked like shit.  Vogelsong pitched a great first inning and then Jesus had other shit to do because he fell off a cliff and got yanked.  Yuck.  So it looks pretty bad.  The Giants are down by 3 runs and they are not especially good at coming back from 3 runs down or 2 runs down or any runs down.

So they just went out and scored 10 more.  WHAT. THE. FUCKING. FUCK.

One sidenote - I was shit talking Juan Perez yesterday and he went out last night and GOT A HIT so apparently all I have to do is hate on someone and then they're great.  Oh, same thing with Hunter Strickland! I bad mouthed HS after his meltdown the other night and then he just came back last and pitched a 1-2-3 lights out ninth.  Granted, there's a lot less pressure with a SEVEN RUN LEAD but still!  Nice to have you back, Hunter. And your 100% predictable Instagram feed (courtesy of Encyclopedia Benner who tracked that down).

That was fun! I had forgotten about the Giants scoring runs. It's a thing they do sometimes when they're not KILLING ME.  It's tied 2-2.  Bumgarner tonight.  You know what that means.  Inning-long interviews with people while the game is going on. I hate Fox.

World Series Game 2: This Pitcher Is a Pipe Bomb

When Gregor Blanco hit his leadoff home run to begin this little shitshow, I was on the bus, listening to the MLB app, which cuts in and out, at least on the 5L, but was on when Blanco hit the opening HR.  Me and one other guy wearing headphones both fist pumped and said "YES" at the same time.  It was a great beer commercial moment.  We should probably be friends now, Guy On The Bus Who Also Fist Pumped.

That was pretty much the last good thing that happened.  Also, I got some feedback from the public after that about how I had questioned Blanco's leadoff skills, but leadoff guys are supposed to get on base, not hit home runs, so I stand by it.

The game goes on.  It's 2-2 when Peavy leaves.  Machi comes in and promptly gives up a run-scoring single to Billy Butler, who looks exactly like what you'd expect someone named Billy Butler to look like.  Then Javi Lopez gets an out.

Then shit went seriously south.

Hunter Strickland is a conundrum, a pitcher who can throw 100 miles per hour, which is good, but who also has a demonstrated propensity for giving up home runs in the postseason, which is very, very bad.  He gives up a 2-run double, then the expected home run.  Let's see what happens next.




Oh my.  That's doesn't look good at all.

Here's a closeup of Strickland yelling:




(Clip via Vine user or Viner or whatever they call themselves Ryan Pizzuto)

As you can see, some believe that Strickland said "Get in the dugout boy," which would be a very bad thing to say.  But my team of forensic lip readers have determined that what he ACTUALLY said was "THAT'S NOT SK8ER BOI," a reference to April Lavigne's 2002 hit, because Strickland heard Omar Infante's traditional home run chant, which is to sing "Sk8er Boi" as he rounds the bases, and recognized immediately that instead of "He was a skater boy, she said see ya later, boy," Infante was singing "He was a skater boy, she said he's a hater, boy," which is completely wrong.

Despite this lyrical brouhaha, one fact remains: if we see Hunter Strickland anywhere near the field of play for even 3 seconds at any point during the rest of this World Series UNLESS the Giants are up by 15+ runs, Bruce Bochy should be institutionalized and/or fired.  Hunter Strickland should be a hazy memory from here on out.  By the end of this thing, we should be scrunching up our faces and saying "Strick...Strickman? Strickfan? I don't remember."  The FBI should be looking for him before this is done.

That's all.  The Giant don't have the capacity to come back from 5 runs down so it was over. It was never going to be a sweep.

The Burning Man "Rapture": Is It Real?

No.

If you're late to this, here's the theory behind the so-called "Burning Man Rapture": every year, tens of thousands of San Franciscans decamp to the famous dust festival in the Nevada desert, transforming our Fair City from a Skinnerian warren of crowded streets and jam-packed restaurants into a leisurely, spacious redoubt by the sea, wherein one can simply stroll into otherwise inaccessible restaurants at prime dinner time, look around the empty rooms, and say "I'd like that table."  To hear adherents tell it, the city essentially empties out and you can go anywhere you want without waits or lines.

I've been a long-time Rapture Truther, and I'll tell you why: It's total bullshit.

Maybe, at one point in time, it might have been semi-true.  Maybe in the late 90's or early 00's, it might have actually seemed like there were fewer people in the Mission, although it's hard to know how much to attribute to Burning Man and how much to any of the other 10,000 places people could go on Labor Day.  (I say the Mission because that neighborhood has always been a hotspot of Burnerism, but maybe not so much anymore what with the $1.5 million condos and the $5000 one-bedrooms.)

Anyway, a simple bit of math should clarify.  There were about 70,000 people at Burning Man this year (the most ever - it used to be in the 20-30K range).  Even if HALF of them came from San Francisco (a highly doubtful proposition), that would represent 35,000 people out of a population of 800,000 - hardly enough to make a dent.

But don't take my work for it.  Here are some data points:

No Burning Man effect at the Alembic. Noisy & crowded like always.
— Mike Cohen (@mike3k) August 31, 2014

The line at Mission Beach Café was wicked long at 10:15 AM ... so much for any burning man effect
— miche (@michesf) August 31, 2014

The 'burning man exodus' has become a myth. The Mission is crowded this weekend. The burners have moved to Oakland. http://t.co/dY2t8yTvpC
— Fred Sharples (@fredsharples) August 31, 2014

From an email I got from a trusted correspondent:

1. We went to new restaurant Plin at Valencia and 14th. Big room. Only available seating was at the bar. In other words, the restaurant was CROWDED.

2. We went to Dalva. It was fairly populated circa 10 p.m., but was NOT crowded.

3. Went to Elbo Room thereafter. CROWDED. Had to "elbo" our way through the crowd.

4. Sidewalks were navigable, but certainly not empty.

I think Fred Sharples probably nailed it.  Many Burning Man types, whatever that is, have probably been priced out of SF in the last 5 years.  Maybe there was some noticeable effect in some East Bay locations, but maybe not.  Anyway, our New City is not particularly conducive to renting warehouse space for your Fire-Breathing Dragon Car any more.

So there you go.  To the extent there ever was a Burning Man Rapture, those days are gone.  Stop resurrecting this nonsense every year.

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!

Star Spangled Banner (v. 2.0)

Oh say can you see
My badass APC
Get the fuck off the street
We're the militarized police

Whose broad rights and what laws
Will we trample today
Your First Amendment
Is no match for my HK

And the road flares' red glare
Tear gas bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
There were cops everywhere

Oh say did that riot policema-aaa-aaa-aan
Tell you get the fuck inside
Or he'll tear gas you toooooooooooooo

Checking out at Walgreens is now an unending Kafkaesque nightmare

It used to be so easy to buy something at Walgreens!  You exchanged cash for your dry goods and went on your way, back to your telegraph shoppe to have a tincture and a linotype.  NO MORE.

Walgreens now is equipped with devices programmed by Top Researchers designed to create a state of anger and longing that will prompt you to buy more Wal-profen or Wal-diazepene next time you're in Walgreens.  Devious, but effective.  These Torture Boxes look like this:

Photo courtesy of Mike Mozart, who appears to be borderline obsessed with chain stores and consumer products, which I salute and endorse.

Checking out at Walgreens is now a 22-step process that reminds me of getting a home loan but is less fun.  I recently traveled to my Regular Walgreens on Van Ness (hi guys!) and to spend $7 on some chocolate covered raisins and beef jerky.  In order to leave said Walgreens with said items, here's what you have to do:

1. Swipe your Walgreens card YEAH RIGHT like you carry it around with you.  I don't know if I ever had one.  Enter your phone number instead.  You want savings, don't you?

2. This is my fave:  HOW WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR RECEIPT?  With FOUR FUCKING AVAILABLE OPTIONS.  I've never stuck around to read them all but I assume besides "printed receipt" and "email receipt" the other 2 are "BEAM IT TELEPATHICALLY INTO MY ASSISTANT'S BRAIN" and "written in the stars."

3. Would you like to donate to Juvenile Something Something Something?  This is now the third step and we are nowhere near getting chocolate covered raisins into our face hole.

4. Would you like cash back today?

OMG WALGREENS STOP.  This reminds me of an unfunny anecdote.  When paying by debit first appeared back in the early 90's I was new to the concept and gave it a shot at, of all places, the Carl's Jr in Mountain View.  So I slid my card through and all and the lady behind the counter whose first language was not English said "KAZBAK!!!" And I was like "I'm sorry?" And she said "KAZBAK!!!!" And I figured out she was saying "Cash back?" Oh.

No, I don't want kazbak.  I'm at a Walgreens with 20 angry office people behind me.  Let's not start banking together, Walgreens.

5. OK SLIDE YOUR CARD!!!!

Now we're getting somewhere.

6. ENTER PIN!!!

I'm on this.

7. Would you like cash back today?

OH MY FUCKING GOD WALGREENS I THOUGHT WE SETTLED THIS

Hand to God this happened today.  This Walgreens credit card terminal has as its LIFE MISSION to make sure EVERYONE who might want cash has ample opportunity to get it.

I finally got my stuff.  Walgreens, stop it.

The Many Faces of Vic Vegas

You know I love me some Bar Rescue, the maybe-somewhat-staged show on Spike TV in which noted bar expert/bar-related Intermittent Explosive Disorder sufferer Jon Taffer and crew make over a failing bar, which usually involves cleaning up a shithole, installing new taps, hanging a bunch of flat screens on the wall, and calling it a day.

Last night's season finale was a cut above the usual episode, however, in its outsized cartoonishness and over-the-top conflict.  It was great.

Now, Jon Taffer, although he is clearly an amazing person, can't do it alone.  In every episode, he is accompanied by a Master Mixologist (in recent episodes, more often than not, it has been Russell Davis, who worked in some capacity at Rickhouse and appears to be a legit cocktail guy) and a chef (this season, usually former Top Chef contestant Tiffany Derry, who, again, appears to be legitimately good at what she does).

Russell and Tiffany were absent last night, and OH THANK GOD because in Tiffany's place we got VIC VEGAS, who looks like a UFC fighter and, we will learn, is the UFC of chefs.  A little Googling reveals that Vic Vegas was a former contestant on "Next Food Network Star" and his goal appears to be making Guy Fieri look restrained and classical.

Vic Vegas, a former contestant on "Next Food Network Star," is opening a restaurant this weekend in the hills of Anthem.

Simply called Vic's, the 180-seat restaurant opens Saturday, promising unobstructed views of Las Vegas with a menu the chef is calling country club meets rock 'n' roll.

"To me, the experience at Vic's will be like being seated in the rear of a Bentley while cranking up "Welcome to the Jungle" with someone like The Rock as your chauffeur," he said.

What a coincidence!  That's exactly what Thomas Keller said he wanted French Laundry to be like.  ANYWAY, w're not here to talk about Vic Vegas' culinary vision.  We're here to talk about Vic Vegas' amazing reaction shots.

What happens on the show is, before Jon Taffer + crew come in to save your bar, they sit in an SUV outside and watch covert secret surveillance footage of all the jackassery that you, the bar owner, either commit or permit to be committed.  Last night's episode, as it happens, featured two roided-out owners who occasionally did some male stripping and then also got in fights, as if they couldn't think of any other ways to express their affection for one another.  Vic Vegas watched the proceedings from the SUV and his reactions ranged from horror to a profound sadness.

This is the "Oh my God why you gotta do that to an innocent mozzarella stick?"

Vic Vegas is pained.  "I am pained."

This is the "Now what now?"

Surprise, with an extra cup of surprise on the side.  In fact, I love this whole tableau.  JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT JUST HAPPENED.

And finally, a deep and penetrating sadness that not even a Bentley driven by the Rock could erase.

One final note about Bar Rescue: apparently they tried to recruit Shotwell's, a perfectly fine bar that, to my eyes anyway, in no way needs the services Bar Rescue provides.

Dude, Bar Rescue has called the bar three times this week asking that we be on the show.. I'm kind of offended
— Shotwells Bar - Beer (@Shotwellsbar) May 4, 2014

One can only image what they'd do to Shotwell's. They took the bar last night, a sports bar called The End Zone, and gave it the massively uninspiring name Houston Sports Hub, which sounds like an athletic complex with raquetball courts and a pool.  What a fucking terrible name.  My dream is that they'd rename Shotwell's something like T.J. McBeery or the Blendery.  IN FACT, Shotwell's should go all pomo and go on the show IRONICALLY.  I mean, we'd all know it, but Jon Taffer and Vic Vegas wouldn't.  Hilarious!