Keep Training, I Got Stuff To Do

I've got to run out and pay someone to hack my gums up. Yeah, sounds crazy to me too, but they call this guy a 'dentist' and I guess I can trust him. My teeth, which are straight and handsome from the outside, are apparently a Cambodian whorehouse inside, chock full of the scum and villainy that make for good Star Wars figures.

Oh well, back with novocane-fueled mayhem later.

SFist Reprint

A weekly escape from the humdrum world of going to bars without writing reviews of them. By stalwart barrespondent, Drew.

I believe several months ago we put forth the notion that "Pirate" was the new "Tiki." Well, since that time "Pirate" has become the "Old Pirate" and "Tiki" has taken back its crown as... well...as "Tiki." Of course in Canada the whole thing's flip-flopped, but we digress.

The San Francisco Bay Area, along with the Southland, Barcelona, Spain (it's true) and bits of Florida, is without a doubt one of the premier tiki hotspots in the entire world. And no, Hawaii doesn't count because, c'mon, it's Hawaii. From Oakland to Fairfax and all over the peninsula, there's a lot more South Pacific-themed establishments than you would think our weather calls for.

Trad'r Sam, way out on 26th and Geary, is an all-time classic. It's not jammed with tourists and overpriced like the Tonga, and consistently makes better drinks as well. Sam's may not be the visual spectacle that some other tiki establishments are, but if it's finely crafted girlie drinks you're craving, this is the spot to go to.

There's only a couple of caveats we would offer about Sam's. One is that some of the bartenders there can be a real pain in the ass. They're clearly trying to be funny, but after the third or fourth time staring you down as if you ordered your drink wrong, the joke tends to wear a bit thin. They make up for it by truly being masters of their craft, however, and I'll take a great drink from a surly bartender over the alternative anytime. That, and this is still primarily a college bar, so expect a certain amount of "baseball-hat-wearing jockocracy" once you get inside. Those slight annoyances aside, If you can find yourself a non-sticky part of the bar to hang on to, their drinks are worth any other hassles you might be put through.

So instead of spending all that cash on a plane ticket to Hawaii, go to Trad'r Sam and after a few Zombie/Hurricane/Scorpion Bowls, you'll be easily convinced that you are in Hawaii and that it's just really cloudy.

Liver... Out!!

Sa Da Tay...

As a big fan of Pootie Tang and Joe Frazier's nonsensical ramblings (one of which inspired the name of this blog), I'm a believer of the idea that something does not to have to make any sense in order to be funny. You can utter complete and total gibberish and if you know what you're doing, be funnier than 99% of comedians and writers out there.

Which brings us to So Sayeth The Peabs, a weblog that frequently makes as much sense as a homeless man talking in cockney rhyming slang with a cleft pallate and two dicks in his mouth. It also frequently makes me laugh out loud. Here's an example or two:

"And you thought watching "The Bicycle Thief" on 'ludes and kit kat while getting your ass Edvard Munched upon by Mark Fidrych would get you off the island! So naive. "

"My Spidunkadunk Makes Your Vagina Look Like Phil Donahue!"

"Hi cutie! You wanna lappy-lap up Peabs' pre-jazz off of my Rod Carew and make a worldwide fad diet out of it?"

Combine that with a scary obsession with Bill Cosby and you've got comedy gold, or someone with a bunch of corpses in his basement. Either way, makes me laugh.

Memo to The O.C.

If I want gay porn, I'll rent it (again)

Dear Doug Lyman, Josh Schwartz and McG (If that is your real name),

What the hell was that last night? I'm sure you think that 'writing backwards' is terribly clever and once you came up with the 'Spiderman' idea that everything else just fell into place, but really, was that the best you could do with February sweeps coming to an end? Your bloodlust for instant gratification ratings points is killing your show, and at this rate it'll be deader than 'Ed' in 2 years.

Bill Simmons (who's a sports writer by the way) recently wrote this brilliant comparison of The O.C. and the first two seasons of Beverly Hills 90210. Basically, he comes to the same conclusions that anyone would, that you are blowing your load way too quick in the name of exciting cliffhangers and the requirement that something earth-shattering happen to a major character every single episode. This kind of impatience will only serve to weigh down the show to the point that it will cave in on itself in under 3 years. Eventually, all characters will be like the intolerable Ryan (Benjamin MacKenzie) and will have undergone so many huge story arcs that they will be unable to show any emotion at all and will just wander around delivering bad jokes.

So it seems obvious that Seth and Summer and Ryan and Marissa are all going to get back together by the end of the season. This accomplishes what exactly? You are then left with a program where all the relationships are back to square one but the characters are all infinitely more predictable. At that point, why not just say 'happily ever after' and end the show? At least 90210 knew how to stretch plots out, how to flesh in 'interesting' new characters and have those new characters behave in a way that completely distracted you from any mold that was accumulating on the regular cast.

You guys managed to almost get the formula right last season. Now knock off the 'in jokes' and non-stop hat tipping to comic book movies and get back to your job, creating a show that makes me embarrassed to watch.

Screw Avery, Thursday Abe Vigoda Blogging

If I had known that today was Abe's 84th Birthday!! You can consider yourself retired, Mr. Schreiber!!

Thursday Avery Schreiber Blogging

Technorati Tags avery schreiber

Hemp City Reduced To Stems And Seeds...

Which one are you?

According to Bay area Blog guy and Byzantine count Belisarius, the whole 'red state-blue state' business can be more easily defined as 'Homer states' and 'Lisa states'. He presents a very compelling argument that makes perfect sense to me, but I'd like to propose a few more types because, as you know, we stupid liberals have to carve everything up into a million gray pieces making fun things like racism and religeous fanaticism almost impossible. Anyway, here's a couple more:

Moe states: primarily inhabited by bitter immigrants who actually did come over here with nothing and didn't rely on some shaky pyramid scheme or human import business to get set financially. They're mostly eastern-european cabrivers and if you accidentally say 'Serb' or 'Croat', they may throw you out of the car. Examples include New York and Cleveland.

Marge states: Believe that anything even remotely political is 'someone else's' business. Would just as soon slash own wrists than talk about anything as racy as Desperate Housewives. Examples; Tennessee and most of Georgia.

Senor Ding Dong States: No english whatsoever. New Mexico, West Texas.

Titannia (the bartender at 'Juggernauts') states: Nevada and New Jersey.

Sea Captain States: Maine, Alaska and parts of New Hampsharrr!!

Feel free to add more in the comments.

Fascists!!

Check out this excellent article. I know it only uses 14 historical incidents of fascism and so can't be trusted at all and can easily be debunked if you believe history to be meaningless because god's will determines what will happen anyway. But even still, give it a read.

Like Baby Vomit Wrapped in Chewing Gum

Obviously, the news about Hunter S. sucks balls. Other voices I'm sure will give much better tributes than I could, so I'll just leave it at 'that sucks' and hope that your death doesn't lead to anti-drug assholes jumping up and down shrieking, "See? See??.

Anyway, found ourselves out last night at a place called "Why Not? Cocktail lounge" in picturesque Hayward, California. I had read recently on a list called Tiki Central that someone had taken a dive bar in a cruddy neighborhood and turned it into a swanky little Tiki place. Always on the lookout for hip little joints, me and the mrs. decided to check it out.

Well, let's start with the 'Tiki' aspect of it. The phrase, "Going apeshit at the party store" came to mind. All Tiki statues were plastic or cardboard, and all grass and trees were of the paper or plastic variety. None of the previous Coors Light football penants had been removed, so the result was an odd mishmash of poorly planned Frat party and Worcester, Mass. sports bar. Total cost to the owner for this 'makeover', probably around a hundred bucks. When we walked in, there was one other person there besides the bartender, and nothing depresses you quicker than a big, bright bar with no one in it.

Forging ahead, I checked out their 'exotic drink' menu. I suppose this one's supposed to say Creamsicle even though it's spelled 'Cremcisle'. Most of the rest sound like bad Schnapps concoctions and variations on Apple Martinis. Someone's clearly trying to class up this joint, so I'll play along. I order us a couple of Mojitos (when properly made, quite a delicious little cocktail of rum, soda, sugar and mint). The bartender looked quite puzzled at first, but upon turning around to see their own drink menu, the light bulb went off in her head. "I know how to make that", she squealed with delight, and off she went.

What was served to us could kindly be referred to as gag-inducing, or not so kindly as like Freshen-Up gum injected with amniotic fluid. Being a trained Mixologist with a 'degree' from Housatonic Community College, I was somewhat able to piece together the cascading series of poor judgements that our drinksmith committed. I'm pretty sure that she took cheap vodka (or possibly really cheap rum) and mixed it half and half with Spearmint Schnapps. That's it! She proudly presented the two 'fancy' drinks she had made as though her resume had just become infinitely more impressive. The end result, unfortunately, wasn't so much a classic mojito as it was something akin to a glass filled with toothpaste and lighter fluid.

After choking down as much as we could (about 2 sips for Teri and 4 or 5 for me), the rest of the evening became a mission to try and get that awful taste out of our mouths. In the end, it took several spicy chicken tacos from The Bell to soak up the residue left by our little 'trip to the South Pacific'.

Not highly recommended. Oh yeah, and RIP Mr. Thompson.

SFist Reprint

Staggering Through Fog

A weekly display of the futility of transcribing notes on cocktail napkins into anything legible. By your dedicated barrespondent, Drew.

Ah, Haight Street... Or depending on your tolerance level of the neo-hippie hackey-sack crowd, maybe it's, 'Ah!! Haight Street?!'. Whichever way you say it, chances are you'll find yourself wandering around this corner where lost tourist meets hopeless poseur every once in awhile. And if you do find yourself there, trust us, you'll need a drink, even if it's only to fill your nostrils with the scent of gin to try and kill the patchouli. Surprisingly enough, however, The Haight has quite a few comfortable bars that provide a rest from the Tibetan-themed knick-knack shoppers choking the streets.

The Gold Cane, a block and a half up from Ashbury has managed to stay virtually unchanged for what seems like decades now. Its big picture windows provide a great people watching opportunity and the overall comfy home-like atmosphere is reliably inviting almost any time of the day. It seems like every time we come to the Cane, it's to meet someone, which makes perfect sense. Its central location is easy enough for just about anyone anywhere in the city to get to and you're not going to have to fight past a doorman and a big crowd to find your buddy/buddies/casual aquaintances.

They're not going to blow you away with their beer selection at the Cane, but they are going to be amicable and friendly as they pour it and treat you like a regular even if it's your first time in the door. It's also one of the cleaner bars in the city and provides a fancy new flat screen TV that they just installed near the front door for sporting events.

So if you haven't been out of the Mission in awhile, and you're starting to think that San Francisco's little more than Ducati-riding hipsters, check out the Gold Cane for some first class, 'dreads and hemp' people watchin'!

Liver... Out!!

The Last Album That Everyone Loved...

Oh Fred, can't you even take a picture without being a jackass?

If you ask me to summarize what's wrong with society today, after 2 hours of me talking about Good Charlotte and A Simple Plan I would eventually start to talk about the massive specialization that music has undergone. Music is so genred and sub-genred now that no one even gets a chance to listen to something different.

Which brought up the question, when did this happen? When did it become impossible for everyone to agree that an album was good or bad, even if it only happened once in a great while. The thing that puzzles me is that I can't figure out whether or not this is a good thing. Is it better that I don't have to share my specific tastes with the masses or is it better that once every hundred years a product comes along that is so good that EVERYONE must recognize?

Cosmic Thing by the B-52s is the last album I can think of that crossed every damn line in the book. Jock to geek, Mod to metal, if you had a party in any college from Dayton to Dartmouth you could slap this fucking CD in the player and nobody would call for it's termination.

The challenge is put to you, dear miniscule readership. Name me some other examples of the last time that everyone loved something. Movie, Broadway musical, whatever...

Move Over Zagat, Here's Something Meatier.

It's restaurant reviewin' time!! Where my gastronomical gourmands at, Yo?

The Basque Cultural Center, located in beautiful South San Francisco, is like taking a trip to a cruddy high school gymnasium that also happens to serve gourmet Northern Spanish cuisine. It was in fact, so authentic, that we almost didn't dare go inside for fear of getting the bum's rush by a bunch of cranky Basque seperatists that noticed we were wearing the wrong colors or something. Chicken out at your own peril, however, as the food we eventually were seved was quite remarkable.

First came a Butternut Squash soup that was a perfect consistency and had a wonderful, saffron-y heartiness to it. Then was a servicable salad and finally, Quail stuffed with apples, cabbage and bacon. Truly delicious and served with a potato dish that may be one of the richest things I've ever eaten.

Highly recommended.

Guaymas (pronounced Guy-mahs) in Tiburon is a spectacular place to alter your perception of mexican food. Named after a fishing village on the east side of the Gulf of California, this place brings complexity to Mexican cuisine that most people are unaware it can possess.

First came the fresh and hot corn tortillas, perfectly made and served with a trio of salsas, all unique and interesting. Then came the appetizer, four pork tamales served with a crema cilantro sauce that was ridiculously good. Both of our entrees were amongst the best things I've ever tasted. The Chiles En Nogada(recipe courtesy of Simply Recipes) was staggeringly good. Imagine a Chile Relleno with a rich, creamy walnut sauce covered in pomegranite seeds. The other entree was 5 massive shrimp served on a bed of rock salt with a creamy lime/avacado dipping sauce that was also just perfect. Judging by the reviews of this place in Zagat's and at Citysearch, avoid this place if you think Taco Bell is the be-all/end-all of Mexican food. The food is much more interesting than spicy and the beans are black beans, not refried.

Combine this incredible meal with a view of San Francisco that's second to none, and I wouldn't hesitate to go to Guaymas again. And considering the quality of the food and view, the $100 tab for two really wasn't that bad comparitively.

Alright, it's back to stewed tomatoes out of a can for awhile until I can afford to act all fancy pants again next birthday/anniversary.

Thursday Avery Schreiber Blogging

On Downward To The Tenth Level Of Geekery...

Check out me and Jeff's new tag-team blog 'Pardon The Eruption'. An entire site to pick apart topics discussed on ESPN's daily show 'Pardon The Interruption'. Yes, finally the wacky adventures of Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser have a fan outlet slightly more tolerable than that Jason Alexander TV Show.

So if you're ready to descend into the depths of sports dorkness, grab a hockey stick and click!

Gary Bettman Can Suck It

No matter how much I wash, it still smells like ass...

Good going you money-grubbing jag-offs. Due to your unbelievably myopic greed and complete inability to negotiate or even notice that you're destroying an entire sports league, the NHL season will be officially cancelled tomorrow.

I know, most people don't care, and that's exactly the point. There's no public outcry from hockey fans (they exist, I promise!) because they're completely aware that pleas from fans won't have any impact when you're dealing with an out of control greed machine like the current crop of hockey owners.

I entirely blame the owners and here's why; Don't believe the bullshit line about how they just want to ensure 'competitiveness' within the league. Bullshit, they want to make as much money as humanly possible and really couldn't give a shit about the overall entertainment value of the league. If every owner got their way, there would be 50 or 60 teams, half of which made money and half of which lost money, but all paying into the league. The half that didn't make money would be kept afloat by the big market teams that, thanks to the salary cap, make ridiculous profits. The biggest drawback, however, is that the teams that do well by running the team well and winning and selling merchandise are then in turn punished by having to give a chunk of their money to the Clippers of the league who don't give a rat's ass about winning because they know the rest of the league will bail them out. When you punish the winners and reward the losers in the hope that they'll both become middle-of-the-road, .500 teams, you've got a recipe for an awful entertainment product.

Salary caps are designed to make the entire league equally mediocre. It's akin to taking the smartest kid in a class and telling him to stop studying until the dumbest kid catches up. It's nice for the dumb kid, but a fucking tragedy for the smart kid. Anyone who has watched baseball or English soccer knows that it's actually much more exciting to have long-standing rivalries like Sox/Yankees or Man United/Arsenal than it is to watch the Florida Panthers play the Dallas Stars for the Stanley cup. And I say this having been born and raised in a small team market. At the end of the day, I would rather watch the Olympic 100 meter dash than a local junior high 'everybody gets a medal' day.

Gary Bettman takes most of his cues from David Stern of the NBA and the only reason Stern hasn't suffered the same fate is that the NBA has gotten extremely lucky over the last 20 years. From Magic/Bird to Jordan/Lebron, basketball has been able to succeed by promoting individuals and not teams. Hockey hasn't been so lucky. Once Gretzky retired, the NHL was left with a product where 99% of people in NHL cities couldn't name one player on their local team.

The other party to blame in this whole mess is greedy city governments. Every stupid city in the country from San Jose to Charlotte has been whipping out their kneepads and checkbooks to get an NHL team. From paying for stadiums to any and all other bribes, there's no depths city governments seem shy from sinking to as they rape taxpayers for the privelege of having a 'real live' sports team in their pathetic little town. Of course, before they bend over completely, they need to be promised by the league that even though their city is 1/50 the size of New York and their owner is some corporate dipshit who just wants a place to send sales clients, that they'll be guaranteed a Stanley Cup eventually because, due to the rules in place, everyone eventually wins.

What hockey really needs is for 10-12 teams to fold (my vote is Nashville, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Florida, Anaheim, Phoenix, San Jose, Atlanta, Columbus and the Islanders). Then let those franchises move to the minor leagues and adopt a 'promotion/relegation' system such as English Soccer. After each season, the top two teams in the minor league go to the NHL and the bottom two teams in the NHL are sent to the minors for the next season. Now that's incentive! Eliminate the draft and let teams sign young talent whenever they feel like they can risk it.

So raise a glass to the death of the NHL. Hopefully, it's the first move in an overall revolution of sports to bring it back to fans and take it away from Corporate Salesmen.

It's Rare

It's rare to meet someone who is so incredibly kind.

It's rare to meet someone who you can spend all day every day with and never grow tired of.

It's rare to have such a great companion, whose your very best friend.

It's rare to have your passion grow for someone every single day.

It's rare, and I just wanted you to know that I'll never take that for granted.

Happy 6th Anniversary and Valentine's Day Teri.

SFist Reprint

Staggering Through Fog

A weekly tirade against all things sober by your humble barrespondent, Drew.

A comedian once said, "There's a big difference between peeing in the pool and peeing 'into' the pool." Very true. The same concept can be roughly applied to bars that allow dogs inside. There's a big difference between letting dogs 'in' the bar and letting dogs 'on' the bar. Now I love dogs as much as anyone, but after awhile of some mangy mutt alternating between sticking his nose in the bowl of peanuts and giving himself a little 'how's yer father', anyone can grow a little tired of 'mans best friend'.

Just about all of the laid back dives in this city have a very open policy when it comes to our four-legged friends, and I would never dream of suggesting they tighten up their stance. I would, however, beg some places to take into consideration that some people just aren't that comfortable having their drink glasses cleaned by an animal that says hello by sticking his face in your butt.

The Toronado in Lower Haight has a lot of things going for it. It's open during the day, usually has some pretty interesting and talkative people at the bar and truly has one of the most mind boggling selections of beer anywhere in the city. Unfortunately, it's hard to enjoy their incredible tap variety because the place is one more dog away from becoming an animal shelter.

Even when we first walked in the place, we were immediately taken aback by the overwhelming odor and 'crack-den' ambience that the Toronado posesses. That combined with the front door always being open and letting in too much light gives the place a disgusting 'Tijuana free-clinic' feel. As much as we tried to not let the overall dingy-ness of the place spoil what was otherwise a terrifically poured Cask beer, in the end we were just overwhelmed by the wafting scent of wet fur and piercing light from Haight Street.

Perhaps we can strike a deal. We won't drag a pool table and a keg into the dog park and maybe bars like the Toronado can keep people's dogs out of my pretzels.

Liver... Out!!

So Old, So Very Very Old...

Here's a picture of me during the Nixon administration.

35 today.

Here's some people of consequence whose parents also had sex in May:

Abraham Lincoln, Forrest Tucker, Franco Zeffirelli, Joe Garagiola, Bill Russell, Judy Blume, Ray Manzarek, Maude Adams, Michael Ironside, Michael MacDonald, Joanna Kerns, Arsenio Hall, Ed Lover, Darren Aranofsky, Judd Winick, Hockey player Owen Nolan and Christina Ricci.

Wow! Michael Ironside!!

Off to get all shitty. What's a good old person drink, Rum and Maalox?

Trying To Imagine Who This Appeals To

The darling of the most recent Sundance Film Festival seems to be the documentary "Inside Deep Throat", which bascically is a documentary about the making of the 'groundbreaking' porno movie from the 70s. In response to the acclaim it's getting, they're also going to re-release Deep Throat itself.

Now I must've really missed something the one and only time I saw this movie. Because, from what I saw, it's people fucking. Yes, perhaps it was the first time it was ever shown that graphically, but it's still people fucking. That's it. No space aliens, no plot twist, no plot. Just run-of-the-mill, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter fucking. Which is why I can't imagine that anyone would need to drag their girlfriend downtown, find parking, get a Frappuccino and pay the $20 to 're-appreciate' this movie. IT'S PEOPLE FUCKING. What more are you hoping to see the second time around?

I know there's a big 'retro-porn' movement and that crowds have been flocking to go see Christina Applegate/Aguilera perform 'burlesque' in Hollywood (I'll save how much I think that's bullshit for another post), but c'mon, are people really going to rush out to the local art house to delight in old 1970s footage of some fat hairy guy shoving his cock into some coked-out bimbo?

Five years from now, are people going to be confused when they watch 'Taxi Driver' and see Cybill Shepard's disgust that Robert DeNiro's idea of a good date is XXX hardcore? Will film-geeks decontruct porn in school and write term papers on the cultural significance of 'Puckering virgin Assholes 4'? Probably not, so the only purpose this re-release seems to serve is as a big giant lightning rod for Focus on The Family and every other religeous nut. They'll all lose their shit shouting, "See! See! I told you all them Hollywood types are evil!".

And while I certainly don't have a problem with pushing the religeous right's buttons, at least do it with movies that have proper money-shots.

Thursday Avery Schreiber Blogging

Gazzara blogging served its purpose. Let's just say it was in NO WAY connected to the Pope's recent health problems and move on...

Why Geeks Will Always Be Geeks

Props to Generik (not because of any inherent geekiness, but for the link to the article that inspired this, which was sent with eyes fully rolled and with due sense of irony and not at all.. oh, fuck it).

If you've got the time (and let's face it, you're reading this, so you do), check out this oh-so-clever, insult-laden 'Triumph The Insult Comic Dog' ripoff. Its target? the T-ball league comedy softball called 'Star Wars Fan'. Aim high Mr. comedy writer!!

Anyway, my favorite 'dig' occurs about halfway down the page. There is a picture of someone slightly unattractive and lonely looking (Oh my God!!! At a Star Wars convention??) with the caption, "Saving throw against homosexualty: Failed...". Now WAIT JUST ONE GODDAMN MINUTE. In order to find this 'insult' funny, you have to be, a) slightly homophobic and ,b) have played Dungeons and Dragons at some point in your life. How specific of a demographic are you shooting for here?

This is worse than anything Jeff Foxworthy ever did. Insult nerd comedy directed at nerds is AWFUL. That you would make such an obscure D&D reference in the middle of some clever, 'snarky' jab at geeks is about the most pathetic thing imaginable. What's next, Jew jokes told in hebrew? The wonderful thing about the internet is that you could possibly convince people that you're not a mouth-breathing nimrod living in your parent's basement. But insults like that just give it away.

Now don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for self-depricating humor, but this is self-depricating with 'self' clumsily crossed out. Don't try and pass yourself off as 'hipper than thou' cutting edge Bill Hicks-esque when in actuality you're nothing more than a butt-licking fanboy with a man-crush on Don Rickles and a collection of Lord of The Rings figures.

Of course the richest irony of all is that as a teenager I once dressed up as 'Dr. Who' at a convention. It's only ironic because I'm so stinking cool now!

Venting My Crotchety Old Man Persona

I searched 'Mean Old Man' and all I got was Billy Graham...

Way back in the day I used to consider myself a Libertarian. Now the strange thing about this is that I wasn't a chronic drug user or a gun nut. In fact, if there's two things that scare the living piss out of me it's some bat-shit crazy dude cranked out on PCP with a handgun. But there I was anyway, toting around my hardcover copy of Harry Browne's 'Why Government Doesn't Work' espousing its shaky premises as if it all just made perfect sense. Unfortunately, most of the libertarian party are wacky gun-lovers living up in the hills dreaming of blowing up the IRS. Remember, I said most.

I think in retrospect that I was a one-issue Libertarian. The idea of shit-canning all the drug laws is still extraordinarily appealing. Again, I'm not a huge casual user and have seen friends screw up their lives and even die on drugs. But one thing is undeniable, their suffering was in no way alleviated, prevented, hindered or altered by those drugs being 'illegal'. Imagine if you took the crime out of recreational drugs and made them like alcohol or tobacco. When was the last time a bunch of kids shot each other in the street over a whisky deal? I've never been able to understand why it isn't just accepted as total truth that having one policy to cover recreational drugs just makes sense and cures a lot more problems than it creates. All the 'gateway' arguments are complete bullshit and have been proven so. Reefer Madness is a funny movie because the ridiculous attitudes that made it still exist.

I think it just further illustrates how badly we need a viable third party in this country. When I see people like Joe Lieberman it makes me sick to call myself a democrat. Even Hillary's recent kowtow to the right so she can prep for her presidential run makes me want to vomit. It wouldn't be so bad if the right was in any way interested in 'playing ball', but they're not and how many goddamn times is the left going to get 'wedgied' before it stops trying to be friends with the school bully? Create your own stupid party called 'the centrists' and you'll probably do very well. Just don't count me among your members. If you need me I'll be the guy laughing at Lieberman as he gets another swirlie.

Jose Can You See...

This finger can bench 300 pounds!!

Alright, NOW it's getting good. Jose Canseco has officially called out all y'all motherf*ckers that were shootin' each other up like cross-dressing vegas junkie showgirls all throughout the '80s and '90s. Let the bidding begin for a Lifetime movie featuring these scenes:

- "Canseco mixed, matched and experimented to such a degree that he became known throughout the league as 'The Chemist"."

- "Canseco said he, McGwire and Jason Giambi shot steroids into each other in the bathroom stall at the Oakland Coliseum."

- "Canseco said he introduced Texas teammates Rafael Palmeiro, Ivan Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez to steroids after being traded to the Rangers in 1992."

And the icing on the gravy:

- "Canseco also said President Bush, the Rangers' general managing partner at the time, must have known about the steroid use.".

When reached for comment, McGwire, Giambi, Palmeiro, IRod and Juan Gone all shook off their feeding bucket and starting bucking all crazy-like until their handler calmed them down with a sugar cube.

The White House's reaction was to accuse the person asking the question of being racist against the Secretary of State and Attorney General.

SFist Reprint

Staggering Through Fog

Your 'plowed piper', merrily leading the way through the bar scene of San Francisco. Special 'entertaining red-staters' edition! By your barrespondent, Drew.

Chances are if you're babysitting friends or relatives from the 'flyover' states', they're gonna want to hit a theme restaurant or two. Now while we try to avoid any and all T.G.I. McApplebees style places at all costs, it's a source of great shame that we do occasionally enjoy places like Bennigans or Fuddruckers. Even the overt tackiness of Johnny Rockets can be fun if you're in the right mood for it. The tricky part is that the place doesn't pretend to be 'crazier' than it is. If you want to put a whole lotta crazy crap on the walls, that's great, but don't constantly point it out like I'm supposed to be blown away over and over again that there's a crocodile wearing sunglasses behind the bar. But all that being said, the last thing you want to do is show your out of town friends something they're expecting. So how do you give them the 'theme' establishment they want while still scaring the bejeesus out of 'em?

Lucky 13 on Market Street is one of the 'themeier' bars in the entire city. From the tip of its goat horns to the end of its forked tail, there are more devils in this place than in a James Dobson TV review of Spongebob Squarepants.

And while the decor of Lucky 13 is a lot of fun, it would wear thin really quickly if it wasn't also one of the best stocked bars in town. A literally mind-numbing selection of beers awaits you when you walk in. From Belgian to Budweiser and everything in between, you'll find some extraordinarily well poured drinks here.

So if you find yourself picking up some red-staters at the airport, why not drive them straight to Lucky 13? It's a short walk from there to Castro street, and once you've turned them into a quivering mass, you can just check them into the Haight Street Free clinic and then pick them up for their flight home.

Liver... Out!!!

Da Mayor Impeached!!

R.I.P. Ossie Davis. Davis played two of my favorite characters of all time, alcoholic patriarch 'Da Mayor' in Do The Right Thing and the loveable limo driver 'Marshall' in Joe Vs. The Volcano. And a few other roles over the course of his 55 year career.

Oh yeah, and I think he delivered the eulogy for MLK and Malcolm X.

Roles for Mr. Davis can be directed to Danny Glover.




"You better get some Miller High Life in this joint!"

One's a Bumbling Idiot, the Other is Fictional

I had two things I wanted to write about, the State Of The Union address and finally tracking down the 'The Curse of The Pink Panther starring Ted Wass' on Encore the other day. Why not do both at the same time?

In 1983/1984, they must've shown Curse of The Pink Panther on cable TV 100 times. I know this because I watched it at least 20 times. Even at the young age of 13, I knew that this movie stunk to high heaven of a desperate Blake Edwards still trying to cash in on the Panther franchise after its only reason for existence had left. Fresh off of 'The Trail of The Pink Panther', which didn't fool anyone (and might've been the last movie to be a clip show), they threw poor Ted Wass into the role of 'Clifton Sleigh', bumbling New York cop trying to track Clouseau down.

Look at that smug little prick. Does this fucking idiot really think he's doing a good job? I can't believe he's trotting out that bogus 'home ownership' statistic again! Unless they start destroying five homes for every one they build, home ownership will ALWAYS be at an all time high. And asbestos? You've fucking murdered over 100,000 people and you're worried about frivolous asbestos lawsuits? What the fuck?

Even though I fully realized that Ted Wass was no Peter Sellers, this movie still had a lot of appealing things for a new teenager; hot european women, exotic foriegn locales, the always brilliant Herbert Lom, Harvey freaking Korman, Robert goddamn Loggia as a mob boss. What more could you want?

Has he really had that many mini-strokes that he can't remember the first 3 years of his last administration? You fucking insecure rethug assholes act like one election forgives EVERYTHING. It's like asking a cab driver to take you to a restaurant across town, having him drive you into the desert, force you at gunpoint to strangle a hooker, go bury her corpse, then suck his dick and live as his manservant for three years. Then he drives you to the theatre you wanted to go to and says, "How could you complain? I brought you exactly where you wanted to go to.".

The sad thing is that there was a clear attempt to eliminate this movie. It's not available on video, it's never mentioned in a retrospective (although the much worse 'Son of The Pink Panther' with Roberto Benigni is.), and except for this once, at 5AM on a Thursday, hasn't been on TV in years. I know it hasn't been on TV in years because I put Ted Wass on a Tivo wishlist just in the hopes that I would catch this movie one day! Oooh... I probably should've kept that last part to myself.

The rest was no suprises at all. Same old transparent sucking up to the Christians, placating the very people that his policies are going to fuck right in the ass (at least until the penalty for ass-fucking is death). Afterwards, it was PAINFUL to watch people like Cokie Roberts and George Will come all over themselves talking about 'the moment'. That heart-wrenching, tear-jerking, 'not-at-all-rehearsed' bit of magic where the Iraqi woman turns around and hugs the woman whose son bravely died in combat so that he wouldn't have to come back to Kentucky and work at Hardees. Congratulations to the Bush team for finding the only parents of a fallen serviceman who don't want to take a swing at him. VERY moving.

There is only one review of Curse of The Pink Panther on IMDB, and it is given the seemingly surprised title, "Not Bad". My thoughts exactly. It also has the added fun of existing in that short period of time when computers could do ANYTHING. In 'Curse', there was a supercomputer that you could actually TALK to. Even Joshua in Wargames had to be typed at! Take that Superman III embezzle-bot!!!

And lastly, my inexplicable love for this movie is in no way an endorsement for the upcoming Steve Martin version that looks like it will be one of his worst movies since Sgt. Bilko.

And just once, I'd like to see the democratic response be, "Well... That was bullshit. Goodnight."

Thursday Gazzara Blogging

Now with 100% more Bogdanovich!!

Do You Like To Laugh? Sure, We All Do...

Don't forget to take the 'Are you a Hall or are you an Oates?' Quiz.

Anyone that knows me or is fortunate enough to have waited for a bus with me soon gets a taste of my love for 'famous people' stories. From that time I held a door open for Sylvester Stallone to the time I told M. Knight Shyamalan that he'd never amount to shit cause no one likes Indians, if you give me 5 minutes, I WILL regale you dammit.

But instead I'd like to talk about people I know that are GOING to be famous, people that are someday going to give me an office on a movie lot where nothing is expected of me but to possibly freak out if I don't get my 12:30 chicken sandwich delivered on time.

Brian Farrelly and Jay Barba, whose website, Liebography, can be seen here, are destined for big things. And I don't mean that in the way a mother talks about her retarded kid or the way a male prostitute says it to make you feel not so guilty about paying for sex. I mean, they're actually talented. At least talented enough to understand the comedy goldmine that are Matthew and Gunnar Nelson.

The 'Suck On This, Darwin' Awards

The awards I just made up for people that have absolutely no right to be alive. Be it through their own terrible habits or imploding under the weight of their own lack of talent, these 'winners' make the notion of 'survival of the fittest' sound as silly as Jesus coming back in a hot air balloon to take everyone to the happy cloudy place.

The Viktor Yushchenko 'what's it gonna take to kill you' Award:

Shane MacGowan. At this point, the Pogues' frontman is just a walking 'fuck you' to everything we've ever been told about alcohol. From 'Leaving Las Vegas' to 'Lost Weekend', it's apparently all lies.




The Paul McCrane 'Your Dead! We Killed You!' Award:

Gotta go to Ashlee Simpson. I doubt if anyone will even bother pointing it out the next time she fakes it or makes herself look like a total ass. In fact, now that her management knows that she's got a free pass, I'm guessing they'll be even more brazen and start releasing old Nat King Cole albums with his name crossed out and her's written over it.





And finally, the 'Pope John Paul II' Award, given to the person whose body only seems to hang on to prove how many idiots will listen to what you say even though you stopped actually making any sense about a hundred years ago:

Army Archerd. This Variety magazine 'reporter' hasn't actually reported anything seemingly since the invention of the printing press. For some weird reason, however, he's constantly allowed to fill up space on E! Television offering insights into the breakup of Jen and Brad like, "Where am I?" and "Who took my pudding?".

Well, that's it for this time. Spring for a banquet hall with an open bar and I'll give out more.