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.

The world according to kid

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

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

On Food

"This tastes like orange" (eating an orange)

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

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

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

On Familial Relationships

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

"Mama's a big daughter"

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

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

Misc.

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

Her: "Shit. Shit. Shit."

Me: "What are you saying?"

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

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

Her: "Yes. Shit the odor."

While driving the car

"I'm looking for a parking spot."

Obviously a San Franciscan.

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

Million Dickhead Listing SF: Tonight, on a Very Special Million Dickhead Listing

Sorry I missed last week.  It was boring.  I mean, they're all boring, but it was even more boring than usual.  You didn't miss anything.

Not like this week is The Wire or anything, but it had its moments.  Andrew, who apparently does not actually sell any houses in San Francisco itself, is off in Tiburon with some 10,000 square foot pile that is ugly as fuck on the outside but I guess someone's idea of nice inside.  The current owners are some British lady and her dead-eyed son who seems like a slightly more malevolent Tom Cruise in Risky Business.

The lad, "Louis," has agreed to be this episode's villain because I guess it looks good on an application to Dartmouth.  In a continuous quest to become more disturbing, the next time we see Louis his jaw is wired shut because he "got jumped by a couple of guys" and now he talks like a super preppy Marlon Brando in The Godfather.  Louis appears to be the Point Jerk in making this sale and is not impressed with Andrew's meager efforts.  ARE YOU A CAN-DREW OR A CAN'T-DREW.  Oh fuck I'm sorry.  To appease Yung Tyrant, Andrew has a big open house that's like Project X for old rich white people.  Caligula orders him boiled alive in a vat of cheap pinot and Axe body spray.

Tonight we will go on a Very Special Journey with Roh as he learns to respect other cultures, even if he does not agree with them.  Speaking of, through circumstances too convoluted to explain, I found myself at the Battery last night, that private club we all made fun of a couple of years ago when it opened.  It's nice enough inside and is populated entirely by people who look like Justin from this show and his clients.  Also, beers are $9 WHAT WHAT.

ANYWAY GETTING BACK TO THE MATTER AT HAND, Roh goes to meet a gay couple at their pad on Potrero Hill that's all sleek and Architectural Digest and Japanese garden and then he has a problem with them because they want to adopt a kid and Roh's not sure he can live with that until his wife explains to him that he needs to be more accepting blah blah blah the whole thing is wildly obviously staged but I guess it's all for the best if it makes some other Muslim real estate agent watching TV reconsider his internal biases.  The real question is why a gay couple wouldn't fire on the spot some asshole who told them he wasn't sure he could accept them adopting a child.  There are only like seven million real estate agents in this town and people will basically drive up and hurl bags of money at them for their pad so why even listen to this oh it's for TV never mind.

Justin is going to try and sell one of the two units in that old firehouse you see every time you go to Twin Peaks.

It's got a lot of stairs.  A ;LOT OF STAIRS PEOPLE.  This is apparently very daunting even to the young, shallow, and presumably fit, and there's lots of talk about installing an elevator like JUST WALK UP THE STAIRS FATTY YOU CAN QUIT YOUR GYM MEMBERSHIP.  To sell Stair Nightmare, Justin decides to hold a "sexy fun event" like "Cole Valley has never seen" but I'm pretty sure Cole Valley has seen a salami and cheese plate before Justin.  Oh he also gets some Chippendales dressed up like firemen to make it super fucking awkward for everyone involved.  It appears that the buyers are all about Dat Horizontal Life and don't want this Escher painting turned $3M condo.

Later, Justin shows up at Roh's open house with some guy with a Strokes haircut and they get in a big fight.  Justin and Roh, not the guy with the Strokes haircut.  His only beef is with his stylist.  I mean, I hope so.  I'm not sure what they were fighting about but it seemed real serious.  We'll find out next week.

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In closing, this show is depressing as fuck.

Look upon the face of evil

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

The Wells Fargo Gold Nugget Heist: The Movie

A supersecret cabal known as "The Associates" has learned that the Big 4 (C. P. Huntington, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and Leland Stanford) hid an unimaginable treasure of gold and gems inside an abandoned silver mine once owned by James Flood.  The Associate's researchers have discovered that a map to the treasure was acquired by Henry Wells when he won some mounted gold nuggets in a poker game that the map had been secreted behind.  Wells later learned of his find but died before he was unable to retrieve the map and find the treasure.  The nuggets were later put on display at the original Wells Fargo branch on Montgomery Street, but knowledge of the map was lost until The Associates learned of it.

One day, a representative of The Associates who calls himself "G" contacts Dexter Wright, a onetime jewel thief and bank robber known as "The Professor" because of his well-planned schemes and the fact that he used to teach Classical Poetry at Berkeley.  The Professor will be played by Denzel Washington.

"G" has some disturbing news for Wright: several people very close to him, including some good friends and even a cousin, have been kidnapped and will be executed unless he does exactly what The Associates tell him to do.  He is to steal the gold nugget display from the Wells Fargo location and deliver it to "G."  He offers as proof a photograph of Wright's close friend and former cellmate Manny holding up an iPad with that day's SFist displayed on the screen.

Wright, panicked by the threats, immediately sets about assembling a crack crime team to do the job.  First, he tracks down "Ace," an expert at social engineering and surveillance, to scout the location and help him plan.  Ace will be played by Rooney Mara.

The Professor and Ace then track down "Wheels," the best car man they know.  Wheels says he's out of the game and he's gone straight as a salesman on an Infiniti lot in Fremont.  He's wearing a short sleeve shirt with a tie when they find him and will be played by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Wheels turns down the offer until The Professor explains that they're holding Franco, who saved Wheels' life one time when a complicated scheme went bad in Sparks, Nevada.  Wheels realizes he can't abandon his friend and agrees to help.

Wheels steals a couple of cars to use.  Meanwhile, Ace scouts the location and devises the plan - Operation Brute Force.  Instead of trying to circumvent Wells Fargo's elaborate security, why not just drive right into the door?  "Like a McDonalds drive-through," she says.  "Except the nuggets are GOLD, not chicken."  [Pause for audience laughter]

Everyone signs off on the plan.  On the appointed night, Wheels drives the car into the bank and the crew seizes the nugget display and flees in another car Wheels has stolen and placed nearby.

As the crew examine the nugget display, Ace notices something on the back - the map.  The Professor calls on a trusted ally at Berkeley who reveals the truth about the heist.

The Professor sets up an exchange with "G" but things go awry and "G" gets shot.  Hoping to send a message to The Associates, the crew chop up "G"s body and put it in a suitcase at the designated meeting point, 11th and Mission, with a note to The Associates.

A member of The Associates contacts The Professor and tells him they want to settle this amicably: a fair exchange of the hostages for the map.  Both sides agree to meet at Fort Point to make the exchange.

The night of the exchange is rainy and mist swirls around the fort.  The Professor catches a glimpse of Manny tied up in one of the rooms, briefly illuminated by a flash of lightning.  Things go wrong and there is a shootout, which culminates in The Professor and the lead Associate fighting it out along the rickety wooden decks of the fort.  Finally, The Professor gets the upper hand, and held at gunpoint, the lead Associate agrees to split the treasure.

Everyone heads to the mine and, following the map, explore the twisting rock tunnels until they locate the vault where the treasure is supposed to be.  Instead of the treasure, they find only a yellowed piece of paper saying "On deposit - Wells Fargo & Co. - One Treasure. Signed, Henry Wells."  The treasure has long since disappeared.

The last shot is The Professor, Wheels, and Ace having a drink together at Specs when The Professor's phone buzzes.  "A job?" he says.  He looks over at Wheels and Ace.  "Yeah, we might be interested in a job."

(Thanks to periqueblend for help during the development process.)

This video of a chick taking stuff out of a plastic backback is my daughter's "The Wire"

I'm not sure exactly how she stumbled upon it - it was most likely on one of those YouTube sidebars of "other videos you might like" while she was watching one of her OG Elmo or nursery rhymes videos - but somehow our 22-month-old daughter discovered the below video and it has now become her own personal "Spitter" episode of Seinfeld.  She will watch it again and again.

WARNING: Do not watch it unless you're interested in a pair of hands with complicated nails remove a series of smaller toys from a plastic backpack and then, in turn, open those smaller toys.


Not exactly the last season of Breaking Bad, is it?  I'm not really sure what is so attractive about this to our kid.  I have theorized that there is some kind of child-level ASMR thing going on, and I will admit the sound of the toys going back into the backpack makes a satisfying "klunk" that my daughter and I both find soothing.  (Well, I imagine she does.  She likes to watch the shit out of it but she's never said "Dada, I find this soothing.")  The parents in the article linked below also share my ASMR theory, to my somewhat surprise.

THE PLOT THICKENS.  Turns out the fancy-nailed Dora backpack opener is THE HIGHEST PAID YOUTUBE EARNER IN THE WORLD.

HOLY.  FUCKING.  SHIT.

That's right.  This anonymous chick (and if you read the linked article, she seems pretty vigilant about being anonymous) made FIVE MILLION DOLLARS LAST YEAR opening and assembling Disney toys on camera.  She came in ahead of #2, TAYLOR FUCKING SWIFT.

This fact is so mindblowing to me partly because until some time last year I had no idea there was such a thing as "unboxing" videos and until a few days ago I really didn't know you could make five million dollars a year making them.

(SIDE NOTE: #4 on the YouTube Walk of Fame is Little Baby Bum, which produces a seemingly endless series of animated videos that I assume if you have a kid you're as familiar with as I am.  They are as addictive for toddlers as oxy is for Kentuckians.  I could - and perhaps will - write a whole other thing about the LBB world and its characters.)

Anyway, I'm sure the Dora backpack video will blow over at some point just like other once-favorite videos have been discarded.  It's just one of those Inexplicable Things about kids.

Best Picture Nominations: My Analysis

“American Sniper”

Didn't see it.  Probably will never see it.  I don't like movies that glorify war unless it's World War II and the movie is "Patton," which is one of the most kick-ass movies of all time.  I mean, I don't know if this movie glorifies war but probably.

“Birdman”

Didn't see it.  Is this the one with Michael Keaton?  He hasn't made a good movie since Beetlejuice, tbh.

“Boyhood”

Didn't see it.  This is the one where Richard Linklater kept showing up at this kid's house every couple of years with "Hey, wanna do some more filming?"  SO.  FUCKING.  SKETCHY.  If you were that kid's mom, wouldn't you be like "Umm, sorry Mr. Linklater, he's busy this week."  Also starring Ethan Hawke and his One Facial Expression.

“The Grand Budapest Hotel”

DID SEE IT.  A couple of nights ago on HBO.  Pretty good!  Not as good as "Rushmore" or "The Royal Tenenbaums."  Anyway I'm sure it's brilliant and everything.  It's not very funny, though.

“The Imitation Game”

Didn't see it.  It's the one with the British guy right?

“Selma”

Didn't see it.

“The Theory of Everything”

Wait, this is a different movie from "The Imitation Game"?

“Whiplash”

This would be a good title for a Fast & Furious movie.  Like "Fast & Furious 8: Whiplash!"  But I gather it's not that.  It's about jazz and has the psychologist from Law & Order.  NEXT.

NOTABLE OMISSIONS: Steve Carell nose movie, Did Scorsese make a movie this year?, That movie based on the book everybody liked, That movie where a white guy learned something important about himself, The Hungry Games.

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.]

Types of annoying people RANKED

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

OK.

28. Obviously fake name at Starbucks

27. Three abreast walkers

26. Bad tippers

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

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

23. No turn signal

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

21. Boston Red Sox fans

20. People who order five sandwiches in the deli line

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

18. Weekend sports anchors

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

16.  Bicyclists on the sidewalk

15. Loud bros

14. Takes way too long at the ATM

13. "I don't own a TV"

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

11. Kid Rock

10. SFGate commenters

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

8. Teens

7. Sidewalk clipboard fundraisers

6. People who date your ex

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

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

3. People who leave voicemails

2. Loud cell phone talkers

1. Everybody else in general

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

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

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

3 are based on comic books

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

1 is based on a fucking child's toy

1 is based on a historical event

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

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

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

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

The Adjusted for Inflation list is somewhat better.

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

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

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.]

The Bars That Time Forgot, an occasional series, vol II: Silhouettes

(In The Bars That Time Forgot, we will, on occasion, pause to remember a drinking place that has shuffled off this mortal coil.)

Silhouettes was a vaguely '50s-themed bar in North Beach, on Union and Cadell alley.

Here's a picture of the exterior, as it approximately looks today.

 There was a large front room/bar, and then a back room with a fireplace and some pinball machines.  Not any place you'd go out of your way to go to, but it was nice to have in the neighborhood.  When I lived up the hill on Union in the very early 90's, we would occasionally go there because it was the closest bar to our house, everyone there was friendly, and it was completely scene-less, which was nice.  Come to think of it, though, most places in North Beach were pretty scene-less back then.  It wasn't really like it is today.  There were still strip clubs on Broadway but it wasn't like the crowds of shitheads starting fights on the sidewalks at last call that you get now.

Since Silhouettes vanished long before the Internet came along, there is very little about the place online.  However, I did find this FASCINATING reference on a site called ReelSF.com, which appears to catalog movie locations in San Francisco and to whoever runs ReelSF.com, GREAT JOB.  I'm warning you now: DO NOT start looking at ReelSF.com unless you have an afternoon free.

According to ReelSF.com, Silhouettes was once the "Paper Doll Club" and was in a movie called "The Sniper."  Here's a shot of the place from the film, courtesy ReelSF.com:

Looks like they opened it up with some windows.  Much better now!  According to ReelSF.com, the Paper Doll Club became the 524 Club, Russo's, and Cadell Place before Silhouettes.  I think the Paper Doll Club is maybe the best bar name of all time and somebody needs to jump on that shit right away.

AS A MATTER OF FACT, we should Kickstarter this shit because, drum roll, THIS BAR IS CURRENTLY FOR RENT.

OHMYSHIT.  We will get this place open, rechristen it the Paper Doll Club, maybe with a '50s theme again?  But not '50s drive-in, doo-wop Grease-type theme, but '50s noir, Frank Sinatra, martinis theme!  I know $7000 a month is a big nut, but fuck it, we can charge $12 for a sidecar now.  Who's in?

(I should note that after Silhouettes, this became an Irish bar called The Field for a while and persisted in that incarnation well into the second time I lived on Telegraph Hill, in the early '00s.  It's been vacant ever since.  It's just WAITING for us to roll in and take over and make it our clubhouse.  LET'S DO IT.)

[POSTSCRIPT: I just realized I've been doing this stupid blog for SIX YEARS NOW.  1100-odd posts.  Christ.]

I'm back

I left The Wife and Beyonce in Ireland LOL.  No, seriously, I did but they're coming back soon.

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to blog about a funeral, so I'll focus on the plane travel instead.  In fact, I'm going to focus on just my flights back yesterday.

Going from SHANNON (Ireland) to NEWARK was such a joy that it made me start to rethink every bad thing I ever said about United Airlines.  I was in a window bulkhead seat and a tiny Indian woman was on the aisle and there was no one in the middle.  It was like having my own private room.

PICTURED: My bulkhead suite on Flight 24, Cate Blanchett in "Blue Jasmine" (more on which later), my legs + kicks.

I watched 2 movies, both of which I had thoughts about.

MOVIE #1: BLUE JASMINE

WTF?  This may not be the worst Woody Allen movie, but it may be the weirdest.  It's ostensibly set in San Francisco, but the SF depicted bears no resemblance to any actual San Francisco.  There are two or three male characters who are total Brooklyn goombah types who somehow wandered into this film and are totally unlike anyone else I've ever met in 23 years of living here.  If you want immediately identifiable New Yorkers in your movie, Woody, fucking SET IT IN NEW YORK.  Also, there is an unintentionally HILARIOUS scene at a daytime party in Marin in which a bunch of white people in coats and ties dance awkwardly to disco music.  It's beyond bizarre.  Cate Blanchett acts OK, but the whole thing was just so unbelievable that it didn't work.  It's like he just randomly decided to set a movie here and wrote a regular script set in New York and then just filmed it here.  The only believable character was Louis CK playing a philandering sound engineer.  It's also not funny.

MOVIE #2: ENOUGH SAID

AKA James Gandolfini's Last Movie.  It's a little, sweet romantic semi-comedy about some olds who go on some dates.  I generally like Nicole Holofcener movies, as long as you realize that nothing really happens in them.  I wouldn't go out of my way to see it, but it was fine when you're flying over endless ice sheets.

We landed in Newark in a TOTAL FUCKING BLIZZARD and that's where shit went south a little.  Since this was United, they FREAKED OUT AND CANCELLED EVERYONE'S FLIGHTS.  United is like an autistic kid who rolls on the ground screaming if anyone touches his dinosaurs.  Planes could take off but United was decompensating in the corner.  Anyway, they put me on another flight to Chicago and then to San Francisco.  Now, I'm 6'4" and I always pay extra for the Special Legroom seats because I can't fit in the regular seats.  I'm not trying to be dramatic or exaggerate about this; I mean, my femurs are literally longer than the space between the seat and the seat in front.  And since this was a backup flight, NO SPECIAL SEATS FOR TK.  Not to bore you with details, but the 4-hour flight to SF included me having to ask the guy in front of me not to put his seat back, to which he replied "Should have bought a seat in first class."  PRICK.

That's about it.  I'll watch the Bachelor tonight and do the recap tomorrow.  We'll get back on some kind of schedule here.

P.S. I also watched ELYSIUM from Chicago to SF and it was a little long but OK I guess.

Doe, a dude, a dude you know

Everybody knows the "Do Re Mi" song from "Sound of Music," but it's clear we could improve on the lyrics.  "Sew, a needle pulling thread"?  Sure, maybe in the Middle Ages!  And "La, a note to follow So"?  Totally phoning it in.  Let's update.

Doe, a dude, a dude you know

Ray, the guy who banged Kardash

Mi, that crazy singer chick

Fa, a million meter dash

Tso, I love that bird to death

Lah, that girl from the Internet

Tea, a name for crystal meth

Which brings us back to doe

What up doe

I went to see Gravity and have a few thoughts about it

THERE ARE SHITLOADS OF SPOILERS IN THE FOLLOWING. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT CARE ABOUT MOVIES GETTING SPOILED, STOP NOW.  DO NOT READ FURTHER.

I mean, duh.  Anyway, I went to the 3-D IMAX showing of "Gravity" at the AMC 14 Van Ness and since it's getting all kinds of press (97% on Rotten Tomatoes! Oscar talk!) I naturally assumed you'd be interested in my pointless, disgruntled opinion.

It's really impressive visually, I'll give it that!  The 3-D looks great and the visuals are stunning.  OK.

The dialogue is laughably, screamingly bad.  In the first part of the movie, George Clooney and Sandra Bullock trade repartee that wouldn't have ever made the cut at any mid-range ABC sitcom.  And the whole wisecracking thing just keeps reminding you IT'S GEORGE CLOONEY IN A SPACESUIT!  Especially when he makes repeated cracks about how attractive he is and how attracted to him she should be.  There is not one sentence that George Clooney says that sounds anything remotely like how you would expect an astronaut in space to sound.  They do all sound, however, like George Clooney on his pool deck in Malibu.  A LOT.  In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing an hour and a half of George Clooney at a party next to his pool in Malibu.

Whatever they're saying right now, I guarantee you it's cringe-inducing.

There's an Indian-American character who might as well be wearing an "I'M SO DEAD" sign on his back.  In fact, we don't see his face until it's been blown apart and hollowed out by space or whatever.

(Or maybe we do - I had to leave in the very early going for like 5 mins to take a call from our babysitter, i.e., my sister, because our child was freaking out about something.  She was fine, as it turns out.)

The plot itself, such as there is one, is mostly Sandra Bullock breathing very rapidly and trying to get from one ruined spaceship to another, interspersed with shots of Sandra Bullock in boy shorts and a t-shirt.  There are lots of lingering shots of Sandra Bullock's extremely toned legs and ass weightlessly sliding through doorways in space stations.  It's like a high-concept Hanes ad sometimes.

It's admirable that the filmmakers chose to have a woman as the hero and main character, and in fact, much of the film is Sandra Bullock alone.  BUT when she's about to give up and die, she is saved and prodded on to live by......THE WISECRACKING GHOST OF GEORGE CLOONEY.  FUCK, can't she just win on her own, without help from Alpha Male?

Then she makes it back to Earth and her space capsule crashes into some lake somewhere and she wriggles out of her space suit - hello boy shorts again! - and at this point, I was fully expecting a crocodile to menace her and her having to fight it off because the entire movie is her going from one life-threatening crisis to another.  So she swims up to the shore and to the final long, loving shots of her buttocks.

(Also, did I miss the explanation for this or where were all the Chinese on the Chinese space station?  Did they all just bounce?  Because they left the place a total mess.)

I know this sounds like a whiny rant, and I do want to say the film is worth going to see for the visuals alone. It certainly was tense and suspenseful, and that's fun in and of itself. But when something starts to get near-universal adulation, BE WARY.  I know I am.

Animated Chipotle ad fails to move local curmudgeon

Mexican-Chain-that-wants-you-to-not-think-it's-a-chain Chipotle released a long-form ad.  EVERYBODY FREAKED OUT.




Time Newsfeed, whatever that is, calls it "the kind of dreamy, lilting mini-movie that you’d watch before a full-length Pixar film."

SF Weekly raves "Chipotle Makes a Beautiful Animated Short That Also Happens to Be an Ad"

And Gawker, which prides itself on unabashed snark and generally being an asshole to everyone, has its icy cold heart melted: "There's No Getting Around It: The New Chipotle Ad Is Amazing"

By now, you must have a creeping sense of dread about where I'm going with this.  Ready?

It's not that great.

Sure, it has the look and feel of a Pixar short.  That's great.  Fine.  But isn't that almost a cliche, in and of itself, at this point?

The Fiona Apple cover of "Pure Imagination" is terrible.  The song doesn't fit her voice at all.  And when it's not coming out of Gene Wilder's mouth, it suddenly just becomes an underdeveloped ides of a song, rather than a song itself.

(By contrast, the Wille Nelson cover of Coldplay's "The Scientist" in the PREVIOUS Chipotle faux Pixar ad is fine.  I don't like Willie Nelson much, but that ad as a whole just works better.)

On to the content.  We see the titular Scarecrow going to work in a Big Evil mass-production food facility.  Instead of an occupation that would be a better fit for him, like scaring crows away, he seems to be some kind of handyman/general maintenance.  (Also, I'm assuming it's a "him" but I guess it could be a "her."  The film isn't clear.)  In fact, crows seem oddly drawn to the Scarecrow, so he's not very good at that.  YOU HAD ONE JOB.

The first 1:50 is this sad sack moping around the factory generally hating his job. Then he goes home and cuts up some vegetables and opens what looks to be a taco pop-up shop.  Fine, whatever.

Why people are freaking out over this is beyond me.  I know, it's not the typical fast food ad (in fact, it's ostensibly not even for the restaurant chain itself, but for some video game they're making, obviously, to entice people to come to the restaurant), and everybody loves Pixar, but the message here is so blindingly obvious and preachy that any emotional impact is blunted.  We know how we're supposed to feel, so there's no surprise.  MASS PRODUCED FOOD BAD, FRESH FARM FOOD GOOD.  Where's the excitement in that?

I know, I'm a crank.

The Bachelorette: Finger of Blame

This week, we're going to kick off with a Group Date featuring a selection of idiots getting matched up against the National Dodgeball League All-Stars, I guess, who have the steely-eyed glare of Navy SEALS although they're wearing ballerina tights and playing a game most people quit pre-puberty.  These roided-out Dodgeballers try to excise the pain and humiliation they felt as children by whipping balls at the hapless contestants until Chris Harrison mercifully steps in and stops the madness and divides the monkey-brained males into two dodgeball teams for some good old-fashioned dodgeball in a cage off the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.  The winners will, presumably, get something like more time with Des or something.  This is as boring as it sounds until the third and final game when BOOM Brooks goes down with a broken finger.  He is led away and put down, hopefully.  Oh no, wait.  We have hospital footage.  Brooks is in the Finger ICU apparently.  There is a team of doctors surrounding him. Brooks may not make it.

Go to the light, Brooks.  Let go of the pain.  You were too good for this world.

Cut to the Intercontinental Century City for the Dodgeball Victors Party.  Sadly, Brooks' finger death has cast a pall over the proceedings.  But Brad has the resolve to soldier on.  He has, it seems, a secret from his past that "has really haunted him."  IF IT'S JUST YOUR DAD LEAVING YOU, BRAD, WE'VE HEARD IT.  YAWN CITY.  No, wait, he has a three-year-old named "Maddox."  Why would that haunt you?  Is Maddox a ghost?  Not an actual three-year-old?  Is it a plastic baby dressed up to look like the Pitt-Jolie Maddox?  That would be haunting.  Wait, there's more.  Maddox's Mommy likes the booze and Brad didn't like that.  Why you gotta be stepping on her good time, Brad?  It's always Unhappy Hour around Brad.

Wait, is that James Mercer from the Shins? What's he doing on this show?

He whisks D. away to the rooftop helipad.  He was "glad to see her in her own skin today."  Not like the women he keeps in the basement at home!

HERE COMES BROOKS.  He has made it.  He will live, as it turns out.  He gets some makeout time for this, but the Shins' James Mercer gets the rose.  Then they get treated to a private concert by a dead-eyed chanteuse named Kate Earl or something, who slurs her way through a few horrible proto-songs while they dance listlessly, lulled into a near-hypnotic state by her monotone mumbling.

INT. BACHELORETTE HOUSE. THE NEXT DAY. Des is writing in a journal or something when the phone rings and WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT it's Chris Harrison.  He has some "bizarre news" and you better get over to the Monkey House pronto.  We learn that there's apparently a guy on this show named Brian or something who has a girlfriend named Stephanie and WHOOPS HERE SHE COMES and Brian forgot to break up with her apparently.  Stephanie seems a little shrill and has the overall mien of a Marina Girl who's been told they lost her reservation at Tipsy Pig.  Anyway, Brian or whoever the fuck he is is swiftly escorted out by the crew and the whole thing is so distressing it makes BRANDON cry.  Brandon is a fucking basket case who really should not have been cleared by the psych staff to be on this show.

Anyway, the whole thing just ruins the Solo Date with Kasey that day.  There's some kind of hanging on ropes on the side of a building and then rooftop windy pool situation, who cares.  Hey, what is up with the name "Kasey" with a "K"?  At some point in the late 80's was there some famous person named Kasey with a K that I missed?

Group Date slash Lone Ranger movie embedded advertising.  One of these stupid let's-do-movie-stunts things they do almost every season, sprinkled with advertising for the Armie Hammer-Johnny Depp BLOCKBUSTER that's coming this summer.  I'm sure it'll make a bazillion dollars or whatever, but really, Gore Verbinski, doing a tie-in with the Bachelorette reeks of desperation.  This is the territory of third-string J Anniston romantic comedies, not epic thrill-bores.  Anyway, Joan Pablo wins whatever kind of contest they're running here which is no surprise because he is JUAN PABLO and has a Spanish accent and is a former professional soccer player.  I bet JUAN PABLO is on this show because he has now had sex with every single woman in America and needs something else to do with his time.  They watch a screening of the movie with "the popcorns" and FUCKING TALK THROUGH THE WHOLE THING.

That night, by the campfire, Drilling Fluid Engineer must have tripled up on the Adderall because he is tweaked out of his skull and is licking his lips like a monitor lizard.  He begins hopping from rock to rock making guttural, screeching noises.  His brain is a fever storm of electrical activity.  Meanwhile, James' dad has a "cancer spot" and he wants to make sure Des is here for the right reasons!  WHOA MAN!  THAT'S NOT HOW WE DO!

Cut to the following day where we're having some kind of pool party for some reason and Ben goes off alone with her for a minute because he's a contestant on a dating show and is trying to advance his position on the show but this unaccountably makes the grown man named MIKEY enraged again.  MIKEY then riles up Michael G., who solemnly informs Ben that they will not be friends!  Mikey gathers up his GI Joes and his Star Wars action figures and makes sure Ben knows he will not be playing with them again.  Brandon starts crying.

Rose Ceremony!  Brooks looks moist and narcotized.  Cut this week are Brandon the Decompensater and Some Guy Named Dan.  Bradon awesomely says he got his "heart smashed by a hammer" and "once again, someone left me."  LINE FORMS RIGHT HERE, LADIES.

31 Weeks

Congratulations!  Your baby is now roughly the size and shape of the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol from "Raiders of the Lost Ark"!

By now, baby has a favorite member of One Direction and can already resent you!  Perhaps you've noticed other changes, such as the feeling that THIS IS NEVER GOING TO END and WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME YOU ASSHOLE.

Have you finished your Birth Plan?  WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE A BIRTH PLAN!?  You're already a terrible parent.  What do you think, babies just plop out and that's it?  How are you supposed to have a baby without a Birth Plan?

Have you gone to a lot of classes?  SIGN UP FOR SOME MOTHERFUCKING CLASSES ALREADY.  Jesus, you're like a child yourself.  Do we have to hold your hand through this whole thing?

You're probably wondering now what your baby's name will be.  It will probably by Rylynn or Kannadi or Smayden or Brixx.  Hard to tell until you get it from the Central Name Registry.  It usually comes in around Week 35.  Get ready!

Here are the problems with Les Misérables the movie

1. It's way too fucking long.
2. Literally almost every line is sung, even just incidental conversation.  Like one guy says to another guy "Are you looking for that horse?" and he has to sing it without any particular melody or tune.
3. Russell Crowe singing.
4. Anne Hathaway doesn't look so great with her hair cut off.  Also - SPOILER WARNING - she dies, but it's never clear exactly what she dies from, unless you can die of Bad Haircut or Being Poor.
5. The dude that plays Marius looks like he just wandered in from another film, maybe something about surfing or smoking weed.
6. It's way, way, way too fucking long.  Like when you think you see a glimmer and we're starting to wrap shit up BOOM here comes another hour.
7. Samantha Barks has like an 8-inch waistline.  It really looks weird.  She looks like you could disarticulate her and pack her torso and legs side by side.  In fact, that would make the movie much better.
8. The Marius dude tries out being a poor revolutionary and when that doesn't work out it's all WHOOSH BACK TO THE ONE PERCENT with no apparent misgivings or guilt.  Hey, I don't blame him for it.  Being fabulously wealthy and banging Amanda Seyfried is way better than being poor and not banging Amanda Seyfried.
9. MORE SPOILERS HERE - Hugh Jackman also dies for no apparent reason.  He doesn't look particularly ill or old.  He's got baggy eyes but that's about it.
10. Sacha Baron Cohen is in it.
11. The guy in front of me in the theater audibly went "Hm" after every scene as if he was reflecting on what just happened.  He "Hm"d about 200 times over the course of 6 or 8 hours or however long it was.
12. Why does everybody have an English accent? They're French, not English.  Even the Americans have an English accent.  It would be way better if everyone did a French accent and they whole cast sounded like Pepe Le Pew.  That would rule.
13. It's too long.