I don't know if "irony" is the right word, but...

The scene today, just moments ago:

Two protests in SF's Civic Center, about two blocks away from each other.

First, in front of the Federal Building, we have the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, of the repulsive "God Hates Fags" and "You Are Going to Hell" signs who show up at everything from college graduations to soldiers' funerals. I imagine they're in front of the Federal Building because of the Prop. 8 trial, but who knows? Hard to tell with people that fucked in the head. They've got their usual signage proclaiming how God hates you and wants you to go to hell. As it turns ourt, God hates almost everyone except members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

A couple of blocks away, in Civic Center Plaza, there is a sizeable group protesting the treatment of Christians in Egypt. They have signs like "Stop Torturing Christians in Egypt" and "Take Action to Stop the Killing of Christians in Egypt."

It's too much, isn't it? On one side of the street, we have a group of Christians spewing the most vile, debased hate against their fellow man, in the name of God. On the other side, we have a group of Christians asking that they not be hated and abused for their beliefs.

I get that the Westboro crowd and the Egyptian Christians have little in common (although certainly they have some beliefs in common), but I just wonder what someone who didn't know anything about Christianity would think. How can members of the same religion spew abuse and ask for protection from abuse at the same time?

There were a LOT more counter-protesters against the Westboro people than there were Westboro people. Good show, SF!

I just got Pavement tickets for the Greek Theater show in June

And I couldn't be more excited.



It's hard to describe my relationship with Pavement, one of my favorite bands of all time. On the one hand, I think of them as more or less permanently fixed in a certain time period - the 90's - although I still listen to their stuff regularly. Many, many of their songs remind me of very particular moments in time, not all of them good, but all of them memorable.

I never thought I would see them again live. 117 days away.

Here's where I give my BS opinion on the CBS Super Bowl abortion ad thing

So the kind of people that get agitated about stuff like this are agitated because CBS is apparently going to run a pro-life ad during the Super Bowl featuring former Florida QB and future NFL mediocrity Tim Tebow.

Apparently the ad is going to feature Tebow's Mom, who's going to say that doctors told her to have an abortion and she had the baby instead and it grew up to be Football Jesus.

Apart from Tennessee fans, no one should be that upset about this. For the vast majority of women, that fetus is going to become a Ritalin-addled behavior problem who blasts Cannibal Corpse after stomping into his room and slamming the door and knocking the Thomas Kinkade prints off the wall, rather than a monk-pure starting quarterback who writes Bible verses under his eyes and spends his spare time giving bone marrow to kittens.

But the bigger issue here is the fact that some TV ad during the Super Bowl isn't going to make any difference at all. First of all, how many pregnant women watch the Super Bowl to start with? And how many of them are on the fence about whether to get an abortion? "Hmmmm, I was going to get an abortion, but now that future mid-second-round draft pick Tim Tebow says it's a bad idea I guess I won't."

Look, women who want to have abortions in this country already have to deal with an unbelievable amount of shit, and it's getting worse all the time. Not only might a woman have to deal with a bunch of protesters screaming in her face, state legislatures keep enacting ever-more byzantine and abusive hoops that a woman has to jump through to get a legal medical procedure. Do you really think that a TV ad is going to be the tipping point?

Abortion is one of those things about which people already have their minds made up and rarely change their opinion. Have you ever had an abortion argument with someone that ended up with one person saying "Hey, you know what, that makes a lot of sense. You're right and I'm wrong." I doubt this ad is going to change anyone's mind either. And as long as CBS is willing to take ads from NARAL too, getting upset about this is a waste of time.

One side note. In that New York Daily News article I linked to above (where it says "pro-life ad" in the first para), the ad below appears on the side of the screen, or at least it did when I looked at the article. If you want to get upset about an ad, this one makes a lot more sense:

Yeah, losing 38 pounds in 2 months sounds realistic. For a POW camp.

Mom doesn't talk much, but she's very pleasant to be around!

The world is so much fucking weirder than you thought. Exhibit A:

Nancy "Sunny" Bostrom, whom police briefly labeled a "person of interest" last year after her mother's mummified corpse was found seated in the living room of her Piedmont home, is running for City Council in the East Bay town.

Bostrom came to the cops' attention in February when the body of Patricia Bostrom, who had not been seen by neighbors for six years, was found in a chair in her unlocked, two-story house at Highland and Blair avenues.

Police suspect that Patricia Bostrom, who was about 82 when she was last heard from, had been dead for years.

An autopsy concluded she had died of natural causes, however, and the only crime cops came up with was the moving of a dead body. And, "we could never prove Nancy did it because she denied her mother was even dead to begin with," police Capt. John Hunt said.

You know what would look good in the living room with those drapes? MY MOTHER'S MUMMIFIED CORPSE, THAT'S WHAT.

Hey, I've heard of politicians having skeletons in the closet, but never a mummified parent in the living room!!! WOCKA WOCKA!!!!



What else, what else? Oh, here's one! Multi-gajillionaire and ugly-haired gubernatorial aspirant Meg Whitman has advice for you poors and others who don't have mansions and private jets: Just be more frugal! I guess being frugal doesn't rule out spending $39 million on your own campaign for governor. Scrimp and save, that's the ticket!

How to ruin an otherwise perfectly normal friendship.

A friendship is one of the most rewarding relationships we can have in our lives. My friends aren't just like my family; they are family to me. Like Thomas Jefferson said, "I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial."

But friendship can be hard, too. All relationships are hard, but so often it is your friends who know you better than anyone else. That makes you especially vulnerable to them, doesn't it? And just like all relationships, sometimes things just go wrong.

Why, just ask Ke$ha and Paris Hilton.

Ke$Ha is convinced her short-lived friendship with Paris Hilton was always destined to fail, because the two women are so "different."

I hear that. Sometimes you just don't have enough in common, and despite your noblest efforts, it just won't work out.

The "TiK ToK" hit maker first met Hilton when she appeared on an episode of the star's reality TV show "The Simple Life" in 2005, and she went on to sing backing vocals for a track on the heiress' 2006 debut album, Paris.

Hey, sometimes you meet friends through school or work, and sometimes you meet them on a reality show. Then they may ask you to come to a party at their apartment, or sing on their album, or whatever.

But, like I said, when friendship goes wrong, it can go very wrong:

Ke$ha briefly befriended Hilton, but that ended when the singer mistook the socialite's wardrobe for a bathroom and threw up in the closet.

Oh, Ke$ha. Remind me never to have you over to my house.

IN OTHER NEWS:


New Banksy piece spotted in Salt Lake City.

Banksy's apparently at Sundance for the premiere of his film "Exit Through the Gift Shop."

I love Banksy.

Have a good weekend!

40goingon28 watches "The Bachelor" so you don't have to

The Wife watches "The Bachelor." So does almost every other girl I know. Fuck book club; they should have Bachelor Club and just be done with it. I'm sorry if it's a stereotype but it's true.

Since we only have one TV, I'm watching The Bachelor too. It's painful. I'm not kidding. It's like watching extremely one extremely awkward date after another, punctuated by sorority meetings. Not sorority pillow fights. Sorority meetings about how mean and bitchy the sorority sisters who aren't there are. If you're a guy looking to get all your worst expectations about what women are like when you're not around met, this is your place.

The Bachelor guy himself, Jake, is the kind of bland, wholesome Everyguy that chicks say they love but who they cheat on within a few weeks because they're bored and he won't go down on them. He likes flying, taking dance lessons, woodworking and, I don't know, vacuuming. He is the human equivalent of Olive Garden. On his official bio it says his "parents have had a long and happy marriage" and no surprise there.

The chicks, on the other hand, range from seemingly almost normal to 30 kinds of fucked up.

This chick, Michelle, from Anaheim, was what we call in the business Extremely Fucked Up. She was on the show to get married and she made no bones about it and decided that she was marrying White Bread the first day. Then she made Stabby Eyes at every other girl and cried a lot. She was Asked to Leave. Her chances of ever getting a boyfriend now hover around nil unless she starts dating inmates.

This chick got kicked off because she fucked one of the crew, no joke. I thought guys were bad, but she couldn't keep it in her pants for even a week. Fuck, it's a reality show, not Spring Break. Even the chicks on "Temptation Island" weren't fucking the grips, and they were sent there to screw around.


Ali's my personal favorite. Fuck, I just noticed on her online bio that she lives in SF! Gotta be a Marina girl. Anyway, she seems relatively normal, which isn't tough when you're surrounded by the Crazy Variety Pak. SEE YOU AT EASTSIDE WEST SOON, ALI!!!

(Side note: Last night on the news they showed the Young Republicans of SF [yes, there is such a thing] celebrating Scott Brown's Senate win at Eastside West and all I want to say is that I doubt they have a lot of problems with simmering sexual tension over there at the Young Republicans.)

So yeah, where do I turn in my Man Membership Card? MONSTER TRUCKS!!! UFC!!!! CHEWING TOBACCO!!!! WES ANDERSON FILMS!!!! DIE HARD!!!! Are we cool now?

"The Hurt Locker" is great and everything, but...

You know what you do on Friday nights when you're not drinking? You go to AA meetings or learn to knit. No, no, fuck that, you stay in and watch movies. So Friday night we watched "The Hurt Locker" because, you know, it's highly acclaimed and all that shit.

Now, I'm obviously going to look like an idiot casting any doubt on a movie that got a 97% approval rating on RottenTomatoes and just won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Picture, but I am kind of an idiot, so here goes.

(Side note: at least "Avatar" didn't win. If that wins the Oscar for Best Picture I am really going to get pissed off.)

First of all, Jeremy Renner is fucking phenomenal as the bomb disposal guy, so let's get that out of the way. And the movie totally has you in its grip from the opening sequence and it never fucking lets up. It's like standing on the edge of a cliff and waving your arms scrambling trying to get back for 2 hours.

Here comes me being an idiot. I just thought it was a little, I don't know, shallow. I mean, the Renner character veers close to cliche - a bomb defusing guy who's kind of crazy and maybe has a death wish!!! Maybe all bomb defusing guys really are like that, but it just seemed a little predictable. And the fact is that this is really an action flick - it jumps from one highly-charged white-knuckle action sequence to another. There's a nod towards character depth with a whole subplot about the Bomb Guy developing a relationship with an Iraqi boy, but ultimately we don't learn a lot about Bomb Guy as a result.

Don't get me wrong; it's a powerful, gripping movie that never lets up and absolutely keeps you riveted for 2 hours. But it's essentially an action thriller. I'll be fine if it wins Best Picture, as long as Avatar doesn't, but I don't see it as this Amazing Achievement in Cinema. I'm no film critic, though, so what do I know.