Thursday Racist Mexican Postage Stamp Blogging

Simply Awesome...

If even one shred of this story is true, then it's the most awesomest, bombshell fantabulous story EVER;

"Tom Cruise was supposedly caught in bed with Rob Thomas (the lead singer of Matchbox 20) by Rob Thomas's wife, Marisol. Rob Thomas is also a Scientologist. Obviously, nobody wanted this to get out, and Marisol was going nuts threatening to expose them. I think that she might be getting paid off, but to preempt any rumors about Tom, the Scientology people as well as Tom's PR people basically recruited Katie Holmes to play this part of Tom's super-excited girlfriend, and they are just paying her a b*ttload of money. I guess they also woo'd her with promises of what this would do for her career, since she's at best a B-lister."

I couldn't have dreamed up a better end to this story. Throwing godawful 'Bryan Adams ripoff' Rob Thomas into the mix is just PERFECT. Now all we need is some kind of John Travolta baby-eating story and a little something about how Jenna Elfman shot Kurt Cobain and Scientology will be dead forever!

Let this be a lesson to future L. Ron Hubbards of the world. Providing cover to closeted gay actors in order to abuse their star-power so you can scam gullible idiots out of their money may work for a little while, but eventually he's going to get caught with a second-rate Richard Marx's penis in his mouth and the whole thing's gonna come tumbling down.


Story courtesy of The Superficial, Title courtesy of Jeff, who honestly believes that those two words represent the highlight of Billy Ocean's career (I happen to agree).

Take Two. Try It With Less Tripe Photos This Time.

Menudo?! But there's Tripe in that too!!

Ok, let’s try this again. It would have been much less disheartening if the thing that was deleted yesterday was something silly like ‘name 10 random songs on your IPod' or some such nonsense, but when you bear your freaking soul, exposing all your slobbering demons to any and all who point and click, only to have it erased into the ether like it never existed at all, it causes you to question the existence of God, and then question whether or not that God is bored with your bullshit and deleting your emails without even reading them. Oh well, whatever, start again.

This questionairre comes courtesy of a person who suffers from the awful malady of being born without merit. Where’s their Special Olympics?

Here goes;

1. What were three of the stupidest things you have done in your life?

It probably wasn’t the best use of my time to spend two years at Long Beach State University enrolling for classes, collecting a big student loan check and then dropping out and spending said check on booze and videogames. Nope, that was real dumb. Second place is a massive tie between a hundred poorly thought out things I did during college trying to get laid. Note to self, "Writing other people’s term papers ALWAYS lands you in the ‘friend zone’". And third, another bottleneck tie of stupidity consisting of quite a few drunk driving incidents. I never got arrested or in an accident or anything, but let’s just say that driving through Orange County in 1994 while yakking out the driver’s side window was not something I’d most like to be remembered for.

2. At the current moment, who has the most influence in your life?

My wife, and I mean that in the best possible way (aww..)

3. If you were given a time machine that functioned, and you were allowed to only pick up to five people to dine with, who would you pick?

Lee Harvey Oswald, Amy Sedaris, Ben Franklin, and the two fat motorcycle guys from the Guiness Book of World Records. For all the obvious reasons.

4. If you had three wishes that were not supernatural, what would they be?

Not supernatural? So that eliminates everything but just asking someone to go get you something! Well, I don’t want to be a pain in the ass, so I guess I’ll ‘wish’ for a delicious sandwich for lunch, my dentist appointment to go smoothly later today and for the upcoming Fantastic Four movie not to suck too much.

5. Someone is visiting your hometown/place where you live at the moment. Name two things you regret your city not having, and two things people should avoid.

I regret that Oakland doesn’t have, a) white people, and b) a better bar scene. As far as what people should avoid; a) the area between Fruitvale and San Leandro and b) the rest of the city.

6. Name one event that has changed your life.

Here’s where I could say more sappy stuff about my wife, but I won’t dammit. Instead, I’ll say the year I spent at NYU. It was truly mind-blowing for a suburban kid from Seattle to go live in Greenwich Village pretty much sight unseen. Most of the friends that I still keep in contact with are ones I met through there and even though I don’t use one bit of what I learned there, it was still unbelievably enriching. Oh yeah, and expensive, which is why I didn’t go for 2 years.

7. Tag 5 people.

Alright, I’ll tag 5 people, but I’m gonna make it real clear that they don’t have to fill this out and that it’s really more of a ‘If you can pull yourself away from work or something you’ve really been meaning to do like clean under the refrigerator’ type of thing.

Jeff at Derelict Junction
C. Magma at Tulgeywood
John at Ribaldry & Schmaltz
Scaramouche
Mags at You Forgot Poland

Phew! Obligation fulfilled!!

Now That's Depressing

I just spent an hour working on today's post only to have it wiped out when Firefox crashed.

I lack the time or energy to re-create it now, so instead, enjoy this tripe:

S to the F-ay with a little bit of 'ist'

Always making the scene in Tux and Tails, the very picture of high class. Ok, fine, usually half an hour late having forgotten to wear pants, Barrespondent Drew wanders around in search of more aimless drunkitude.

Perhaps the most comical thing you can come across during any pub crawl is a ‘scene that doesn’t know it’s a scene’. Nothing gets us giggling and pointing faster than people hanging out and posing while trying desperately hard to look like the kind of folks that despise hanging out and posing.

There are many variations on this theme, be it the ‘pretty people only’ hangouts of the Marina or the packs of sensitive twenty-something mop-tops that seem to frequent Clement Street these days, scenes are everywhere. And it’s just so darn cute to watch them mill around like pidgeons while pretending to be so unique. Check out one of the biggest ‘scenes for people who hate scenes’ after the jump.

Zeitgeist on Valencia and Duboce is part rough and tumble biker bar, part tattoo convention and part Oktoberfest. If you’ve lived anywhere in the Southeastern part of the city and never been to their back yard on a hot summer’s day, you’re missing out on a great San Francisco people watching experience.

On any sunny day, the outdoor area of Zeitgeist is filled with more trust funds than a Dupont family reunion. Scraggly, tat-laden tough guys try and convince everyone around them how much they’re living on the edge while wearing head-to-toe Von Dutch and riding up on a bike that costs as much as some people’s yearly mortgage.

You would think that this nonstop leather-off would be annoying, but Zeitgeist is such a large space that you can just grab one of their 20 or 30 drafts (available in pitchers, woo-hooo!), sit back and enjoy the show. They also cook up a mean burger to complete the backyard barbeque experience.

Bartenders here can be a little curt, but this place does get pretty slammed most nights, so that’s easy to forgive. And on colder nights when outside isn’t such a great option, while there’s quite a bit of room inside, it does get really packed and really loud most nights.

So if you want a time-capsule quality snapshot of what The Mission’s all about, get over to The Zeitgeist and observe ‘Ducati Rider’ in his natural habitat.

Liver… Out!!

Les Erupciones Dangerouse

Hey Look, That Guy I've Never Heard Of Just Hit A Home Run Off Of Some Guy I'll Never Hear About Again!

As anyone who Tivos Pardon The Interruption knows, ESPN has totally dicked their schedule around the last couple of days to accomodate the sucking black hole of sports entertainment known as the College World Series. Now let me be as clear as I can on this topic as my opinion is very nuanced and could be misconstrued;

NO ONE CARES

OK, perhaps I'm exaggerating a little. I'm sure at least half of the players immediate families care (or at least has to pretend to in case the guy makes the majors and becomes rich). But outside that, nobody, no one, nada people, zero, zilch, Squa-doosh.

Honestly, have you tried to watch any of this crap? Between the aluminum bats and the college players who all look older than Kevin Costner, it's simply intolerable. Isn't there a Scrabble tournament or Geography Bee that ESPN could be covering instead?

If ESPN switched one of these games over to the Duece, the Classic, or even that new one that no one gets, the 'U' or whatever, would anyone care? How much hatemail would they get? My guess is they might get two or three illegible screeds on a cocktail napkin that just say "Git-R-Done" over and over.

Don't screw with the franchise ESPN. The day I start caring about college baseball is the day I've ordered my wife to have me mercifully euthanized.

Happy Pride Weekend

If even a small part of anyone reading this holds any form of intolerance towards gay people, please take this weekend to ask yourself 'why?'. What is it that homosexuality does to you that makes you so uncomfortable? Do you really believe that the whole institution of marriage will collapse if a man or woman is allowed to visit the person they've decided to spend the rest of their life with in the hospital? No, really? Really??

The only thing that makes people frightened by homosexuality is ignorance. I beg you to question your pastor's stance on this. You never know, he just might be wrong about something sometime. If you'd bother to get to know some gay people, you'll find out that they aren't sexual predators running around trying to enlist your kids. They're just normal, everyday people who deserve something other than your irrational hatred.

Finally, just think how you would like history to think of you. Do you really want people looking at footage of you and your neighbors the same way we look at pro-segregationists of the 50s and 60s, shaking our heads and wondering how you could've been so wrong?

Just some food for thought. Have a great weekend.

Thursday Robert Loggia Blogging

Free To Wallow In Their Own Crapulence

As absolute power continues to gnaw away and erode any sense of right or wrong that may have once existed in their brains, the Republican power machine continues its steady descent from villiany to cartoonish super villiany.

Wisconsin Congressman James Sensenbrenner (Douchebag, Wisc.) does his party and state a real disservice by cutting off his opposition's microphones, taking his gavel and going home. Congratulations James, you just confirmed what some of us already knew but some only suspected; your party is full of a bunch of petulant, tiny-dicked crybabies whose rise to power is filled with so many back alley blowjobs and opportunistic lies that when faced with any sort of reasoned debate your cock retreats into your body like you just jumped into a frozen lake.

I guess, to be fair, the hearing was about the 'Patriot' Act. I suppose if it'd had anything to do with freedom or common rights or dignity you may have allowed for some descenting opinion. You're probably one of those congressmen who think that 'Marbury v. Madison' was just a load of crap anyway and that the Bill of Rights is just a big pain in the ass that stands in the way of congress getting to have an 'up or down' vote on everything.

With any luck (and a few more grade school-quality hissy fits) you'll get your precious Patriot Act 2 and we'll be a few more steps along the road to turning this country into the kind of efficient minority -killing and torture machine that Joe Stalin himself would've been proud of.

I Am Dangerous... Ice... Man....

Yeah, I know, what more could possibly be said about Tom Cruise? I just want to make sure that anyone who might still be on the fence about him, anyone who shrugs their shoulders and says, "But he was so good in 'All The Right Moves'", basically anyone who doesn't think this is the most humorless, misinformed, self-involved weasel in Hollywood gets set straight (pun intended, because, you see, he's actually gay, not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just funny to watch him go to such lengths to hide it when all the kids downstairs know that Daddy's in his room masturbating to gay porn again).

Check out this practically-based joke pulled on Cruise the other day. In the spirit of Tom Green or 'Kicked in the Nuts', the interviewer sets off his microphone to squirt Tom in the face. Cruise's first reaction is what any normal person would have in this situation, to laugh. It surprised him, he's not injured and it's silly. But as soon as Tom gets his composure, he decides to berate this 'thetan-challenged' individual and try and find out why he ever thought this would be funny. "HOW DARE YOU squirt water on me!", he seems to indicate as he berates the evil prankster. "You're a jerk", he actually whines, meant I suppose to guilt the offending man into accepting Cruise's wacky alien-volcano religeon and swearing to Hubbard that he'll never pull another 'boner' again.

Someone really needs to knock Tom Cruise down a peg or twenty at this point. Left unchecked at his current rate he'll be collecting his urine in jars by the end of the year.

Scamboogah's First Birthday Extrava-Tony-Danza!!

They mis-spelled 'Bidet', but once Timmy's ass is cleaned up, he won't care.

One year ago today, I saw an already over-crowded Blogosphere and said, "Me too". After years of screaming at the TV and making homeless people uncomfortable, I convinced myself that I had something really important to say and was off and running. Fortunately, I was right. I did have something important to say and got it out of the way sometime last August. The rest of the time has been spent on cheap internet filler, dick jokes, and seeing how many times I can squeeze the word 'douchebag' into what's supposed to be a serious political piece.

Personally, I'd like to think I've made a huge difference. Whether it's in the way I got John Kerry elected President, stopped everyone from seeing that awful-looking Jane Fonda/Jennifer Lopez movie or turned the world off of Toby Keith and onto The Chemical Brothers.

Here's a 'Scamboogah!!' Fun Fact:

In 1864, at the height of the Civil War, Andersonville Prison had more people die per day in it than there are people who read this site!

So Happy Birthday to Me. Feel free to leave a comment about how Scamboogah changed your life and how much that pisses you off because you liked your life just fine before.
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Sfist Reprint, Just In Case Your Mouse Is Broken

Put down that guide on how to make wine in prison! Barrespondent Drew has some slightly better ideas on how to get yer buzz on. And none of his involve moldy bread and an old sock.

Inspired by last week's comments on Edinburgh Castle's 'tough as nails' trivia night, we tried out one of the city's other Tuesday night geek-fests. Now don't get us wrong, we luvz the trivia and see it as a wonderful way to show off our big 'chess club' brains, but the thing that young quizmasters of this city must realize is that hosting trivia is not as easy as Regis Philbin and Alex Trebeck make it look. Unless you've got hired goons or can somehow get the bar's respect quickly by waving a firearm around or something, a night of innocent trivia can easily turn into a game of “Which drunken idiot can shout out the answer and ruin it for everyone else the fastest”.

That said, as far as we're concerned, the benchmark for well-run trivia nights is still Pete at Mad Dog In The Fog. But since we've already covered that place in glowing terms, we decided to try another bar. One that in fact was hailed by our good buddies at SFWeekly as the 'best in the city'. Oooh, we couldn't wait to show off our unmatched ability to tell the difference between the Communards and Bronski Beat, which, after all, is the true test of whether you actually know your '80s music or you just say you do. So bring it on!!

The Bitter End on 6th & Clement (formerly Maggie O's before the Inner Richmond became so 'Emo') is a nice little Irish space chock full of booths and tables. Very well situated for every day use, but even better situated for trivia contests. So we get there early, stake out our spot and prepare to be tested.

The contest starts out innocently enough. A round of twenty brain teasers that is challenging, but not frustrating. It is accompanied by the requisite picture round which also provides a good challenge. But over the course of the evening, you pretty much hear someone yell out the identity of each of the pictures (That's totally Ralph Macchio!!!). Whatever, we can forgive that. This is why they don't play Jeopardy drunk.

Then comes the first problem with our trivia host. Instead of handing your papers in to be corrected by someone 'impartial', he has you pass it to the next table for grading. Not only does this create rampant opportunities for cheating, but you then get your answer sheet BACK before handing it to the quizmaster. Even more opportunity for cheating! Again, whatever, I guess I can trust my fellow man a little bit for one night.

But next comes the really big, glaring flaw in The Bitter End's trivia night, the music round. Not wanting to do the round himself, the host passes the musical duties on to one of the previous week's players every time. The only trouble is that he doesn't prohibit this person from participating in trivia that week. Let me just say that again, someone who is WRITING THE TRIVIA QUESTIONS IS ALLOWED TO PLAY THE TRIVIA GAME. Our team was in 3rd place going into the music round, and managed to move into second afterwards, but were 'somehow' leap-frogged by a team that got a PERFECT SCORE in the round and opened up a commanding lead. Amazingly enough, this team consisted of 3 people and the aforementioned GUY DOING THE MUSIC ROUND.

We spoke to several people who had been coming for awhile, and this basically happens every week. Whoever does the music round usually winds up winning with a perfect score in the round they happen to be running. When confronted with this obvious case of 'shenanigans', the host's tendency is to shrug his shoulders and act like he has no control over this.

This is not just sour grapes because our team finished in second behind Charles Van Doren and his group of smelly cheaters (although, to be fair, if we'd finished 10th, we'd probably be reviewing The Kilowatt again), this is a matter of bar trivia principle. How can a pub just named 'best in the city' for trivia allow this kind of rampant dishonesty and unfairness in its trivia night?

If you're in the mood for some wacky test-em-ups, don't go to the Bitter End until they fix this problem. There are several other much better trivia nights to choose from (again, Pete at the Mad Dog is actually able to correct the answers, come up with a music section AND read the questions all in one night! In other words, he earns his free beer), and even though the beer was nice and cheap ($10 for a pitcher of Newcastle), it still doesn't make up for their RIGGED (yeah, I said it) and LAZY (yeah, I said that too) trivia night. A complete and total disgrace.

Liver... Out!!

PTE, 'Tis A Manly Place But The Ladies Like It Too

Rasheed Wallace is a dick. Having said that, I think Wallace has great game, and the thing that bothers me most about him is imagining what an incredible player he would be if he removed his head from his ass long enough not to be a negative influence on his team and instead focused on what his job is supposed to be, to play friggin' basketball.

Last game contained a stretch that perfectly illustrated Rasheed's petulant, child-like asshole-ishness. Upon not getting a foul call, Wallace goes through his usual smiling, persistent homeless guy that doesn't know when to stop routine. After not getting the call reversed (as is always the case with other players), Rasheed goes into pout mode. The referee tosses him the ball to inbound. He doesn't move and the ball bounces off his chest and onto the ground. At this point, the official is getting pissed and rightfully so. What are you, Rasheed, five freaking years old? What, you don't want to wait in line at the bank, so you're just going to fall on the floor and play dead? I thought the official handled it very well. He bent down, picked the ball up and laid it at Wallace's feet and IMMEDIATELY started counting off five for him to pick it up and inbound.

Anyway, what I'm getting at with all this (other than just pointing out what a baby he is) is that if Wallace could just show officials some respect and not act like a such an ass, he would get the benefit of the doubt on calls and score more and become a top echelon superstar. What is it that's so damn hard about that?

Fixing The Facts Around The Policy? Why, That Could Mean Anything!

According to Bill Frist, this is a picture of Stevie Wonder 'obviously responding to visual stimuli'

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the way Republicans are reacting to the fact that most of their arguments that they've been making for the past several years are crumbling around them. The Downing Street Memo, The Terri Schiavo autopsy etc. A rational person might take a step back and say, "Oh shit, I guess I was dead wrong about that. My bad.". Of course, rationality is the property of those demon-lovin' godless secular humanists and their ilk. These people will stick with what's worked up until now, closing their eyes real tight and shouting whatever their pastor tells them to.

Both of these items were not just smoking guns, these were massive cannons with GW Bush and Randall Terry caught standing next to them with a lighter in one hand and another cannonball in the other, unspinnable proof of lies and deception. So what's the response been from the media and indeed, most people? "Hey, did you see that Michael Jackson verdict?", "Boy that Howard Dean sure is crazy", and "Tom Cruise is even crazier than Howard Dean!".

The fact that the right's official response to Downing Street is "No one cares" is just awful. So basically, what you're cynically saying is, "Yeah, so the President lied, so we've all been lying for the last 3 years, so what. We had to because you're so dumb that if we told you the truth, you wouldn't have wanted us to go to war.". Just make sure the President doesn't lie about getting a blowjob, however, or we'll have to have him impeached.

The greatest trick that the Republican party seems to be able to pull again and again is the ability to call their own supporters idiots to their face. "Yeah, uh, we'd of loved to tell you the truth that we wanted to throw Sadamm out for personal revenge reasons and to make Dick Cheney's friends rich, but you people are too dumb to understand that, so we made up the whole Weapons of Mass Destruction thing. I guess if we have to apologize for anything, it's that we underestimated how dumb y'all are. Sorry 'bout that.".

In the Shiavo case, you have an autopsy that proved several things; she wasn't going to live much longer, she'd been blind for a long time, and that she had a brain left that was about as big as an acorn and in danger of rolling out of her ear. My favorite is the discovery of her blindness just because it makes Dr. 'analysis by satellite' Frist's statement that "She obviously responds to visual stimuli" look rather silly. Well that and every other word he's ever said. OK, so game over, right? People will at least listen to someone doing an autopsy, right? After all, he's got nothing to gain one way or the other so we can nail this particular coffin shut, eh?

Wrong again. Of course, the people still defending Shiavo never wanted any scientific proof one way or the other. They just BELIEVE and you could put the autopsy report on an endless loop and lock these glossy-eyed idiots in a room with it and they'd just clutch the good book, sway back and forth and say, "It doesn't matter, because I BELIEVE.".

And therein lies the problem. Why even pretend we have intelligent debate in this country if half of the argument is, "Well, whatever, I believe in Jesus."? If we can't even get past something as easy to understand as evolution with these people, what possible hope is there for those trying to argue complex issues like Stem Cell research and death with dignity?

Oh well, either way, I just hope our President keeps on lying to us. It just shows us how much he cares!

Thursday Nancy Dussault Blogging

Ran-dom and Dumber

Just a few things that caught my eye and/or made me laugh/cry/lose control of my bowels;

Best Headline about the Michael Jackson verdict:

"Wacko Jacko Escape-o Buttrape-o"

Good news for people who like... er... want to... uh... Ok, not good news for anyone:

Sirius Radio's new Margaritaville station. All Jimmy Buffett, all the time!!

Most depressing statistic ever:

4,621,000 people watch WWE Wrestling, 1,400,000 watch The Daily Show.

Worst argument for something I believe in:

The last election was rigged because Vegas odds-makers had Kerry as a 2-1 favorite and they're never wrong.

And finally,

Most useful information I've gotten online in months:

How to make wine in prison.


Special thanks to any and all thievery victims whose hard work and ruthless determination to uncover interesting information made it possible for me to randomly sample their stuff and make a lazy post of my own in about 5 minutes.

A Day Without A Mexican, More Like A Movie Without A Clue

I remember way, way back in the day seeing a film titled 'Suffering Bastards'. It was basically a student film, but a student film with an incredibly large budget. First of all it was feature length (very unusual at NYU), second of all it had Eric Bogosian, Gina Gershon and John C. McGinley in it (and they were all names at this point, so it wasn't like this movie 'discovered' them). Third of all it was totally and completely awful. One of the worst things I've ever had the displeasure to watch, actually.

Now the truth is, I've probably seen worse movies. But if there's one thing that can inevitably make a bad movie much, much worse it's somehow, through nepotism, inheritance or just plain idiocy, lots of money was thrown into the project. Nothing is sadder than seeing actually talented people's skills totally wasted on some rich kid's vanity project that should never have seen anything but the bottom of a trash can.

Such is the case with Sergio Arau's 'A Day Without A Mexican'. I'm not going to say I had 'high' hopes for this movie. Granted, it's a mildly funny concept (all Mexicans disappear for a day and California shits its pants), but certainly not one so original that execution of the idea didn't matter. I started watching this movie with guarded optimism, knowing that there's lots of comedy and good points to be mined from it, but knowing it would take cleverness to get at it.

It sucked. And not in a normal 'sucky' way that a lot of little indie comedy movies usually suck. This movie sucked so much that it pissed me off. It takes a lot for a movie to anger me, but this one did. I think partly, it's because there was potential here. It's making a statement that I agree with and that ignorant people need to hear. The only trouble is, this steaming turd of a movie forgot its point 5 minutes into it. The next 85 minutes is high production value crap, poorly written, autopilot material that leaves you with a feeling of wasted time and opportunity. It's the same feeling you get when you go to an 'Anti-Iraq war Rally' and it's filled with burnout hippies screaming about legalizing pot. Except this movie wasn't even cool enough to get distracted by weed. Instead, this movie got distracted by its own bloated sense of brilliance, as if the idea was so good and original that they didn't even have to put any effort into the script at all.

The other thing that really annoys me about this movie is that there's an audience that feels like they can't dislike it. As if they will have to give up all liberal causes and vote for Pat Buchanan in the next election because they dared to point out that this movie was horribly flawed. Just admit that it's probably better that this film didn't get a wider release as most of the Mexican characters are such awful stereotypes and so simple and reactionary that widespread viewing of this film would've done more harm than good.

So unless you're writing a doctoral thesis on massive wastes of time, give 'A Day Without A Mexican' a miss.

Be My Queen For Life, Or At Least Until Your Sister Turns 18

King Mswati III of Swaziland is a P-I-M-P Pimp! Dude just married his 12th wife (Miss Teen Swaziland) not even two weeks after marrying his 11th!!

The cool thing about Mswati, or as I like to call him, 'King Playa of Crunktown', is that apparently he's busy tricking out his whips while 40% of the country he rules is dying of AIDS. I know, I know, you probably think that seems like a pretty shitty thing to be doing. It's cool though, he's got a really good excuse for boning teenagers in the back of his pimped out Bentley while the rest of the country suffers a slow, horrible death;

"Mswati early in June said he was not sub-Saharan Africa's ONLY absolute monarch".

Dude's got a point. Alright you wacky King! Carry on. But if in the future it turns out you're the only mindless despot more concerned with gettin' his dick wet than the well-being of 1.1 million people you're supposed to be helping, then you're in big trouble!

Sfist Again

Transcribing drunken gibberish into drunken bar review column for nearly ten months now, barrespondent Drew sets you up with another dank booze-hole to kill some time and/or brain cells within.

As rich as the drinking history is here in San Francisco, you just can't mess with the thousands of years of inhebriated past and vomit-stained tapestry that is British Isles bar history. From the Isle of Wight to Kirkwall, Scotland, many areas of the U.K. don't really have a 'pub culture' because that would be redundant. The Pub 'is' the culture and is far more efficient than any newspaper or town crier at filling people in on what's going on around town.

Unfortunately for us, here we have to make do with re-creations of Britian pub life. Most of these places are akin to their inspirations in name and decor only. Just another gimmick to get people in the door so they can order a Coors Light, play some Springsteen on the jukebox and get out. Lucky for us, however, there are quite a few places here that get it right and can give you that authentic foggy pub feel without the $600 plane ticket..

Edinburgh Castle on Geary in the Tenderloin represents Scotland quite well, thank you. Dark, woody and multi-leveled, it's got the feel of authenticity coursing through each and every square inch of it. Lots of dartboards and ample places to sit down with your mates may make this place somewhat depressing to come to by yourself, but a fantastic place to bring a group.

Filled to the ceiling with dusty bottles of scotch and sherry, The Castle's liquor and beer selections are top notch. You'll find all the standards here like John Courage and Newcastle, plus a few you might not have heard of. We've never had anything but a friendly bartender here, no matter how busy the place was.

Bands play the Castle on weekends, so take that into account or make sure it's someone you won't mind listening to. It's usually of the 'indie-rock' variety, but they occasionally throw on some more traditional Irish or Scottish acts as well. If you arrive later, the cover is almost always $6 or under, so don't worry about any sort of 'velvet rope' situation.

So if you're pining for a bit of Aberdeen in the middle of the 'Loin', get stuck into Edinburgh Castle. It's the cheapest and quickest way we know of to 'hop the pond' for the night.

Liver... Ooot!!

Best O' Pardon

Do They Not Have Men's Departments in Spain?

I'll have to take Kornheiser's word for it when he said he doesn't look good in Capri pants.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go cut off my ears and rub laundry detergent into my eyes.

Congrats to Rafael Nadal for proving that you can play great tennis while promoting the new line from Ann Taylor.

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Indeed...

Ahahahahaha!! I get it! Minus ten points for not including the words, 'mass graves' however.

If you've got a second (and who doesn't in these laid-back, Amish-like times we live in?), check out this post by The Rude Pundit called "Howard Dean Will Fuck Your Shit Up.".

The truest line in the whole thing is this;

'Ain't it fun to watch Hannity and Coulter and Gingrich and Hume and all the other hate-filled sociopaths flail about and try to take Dean down? You've seen Dean's arms? Big, thick sons of bitches. He can bear it. And he can throw it back at them. As long as those behind him don't put him in handcuffs.'

When will all the democratic career politicians, battered wives like Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman and Nancy Pelosi realize that cow-towing to these evil power-hungry bastards will not work, ever. Dean may occasionally fly off the handle a little and speak in hyperbole when he called republicans a bunch of rich, white assholes who never made an honest living in their lives. But you know what? That's still not half as bad as the lies that are spread every single day on any one of a million talk radio shows or at any church in the country.

If we're ever gonna turn this thing around, the left have got to stop being such pussies and give as good as they get. Because at this point, the middle-of-the-road democrats just look like bruised-up dorks, apologizing to the school bully for getting blood all over his fist.

Thursday DavyForce.com Blogging

Have you ever had someone send you something and you're first reaction is anger? Anger that this could have existed without your knowledge for so long?

You would've thought that 80s-style DJ scratchin synched up with images from 70s-style game shows and modern commercials would be such a no-brainer that everyone'd be doin' it. Unfortunately not. Needless to say, however, that once you watch these videos, Skippy squeezable peanut butter will never be quite the same again.

The Doppler 7000 and Gene Rayburn/Charles Nelson Reilly vids are instant classics.

MVP is here, and commands your attention.

Travelogue Season Finale

If you're just joining us, so far me and the mrs. have learned a lot during our trip to Baja, Mexico. Turns out we don't like most other people, especially dickwads from Temecula that fly down there in their Cessna to fish and boast at the bar. Also, wedding food can be tricky, and while hot dogs are great if you're walking down a street in New York and don't have time to wait for a slice of pizza to cook, they don't exactly scream 'matrimony'.

Ok, come to think of it, we didn't learn anything we didn't already know. And speaking of 'not learning', that brings us to Monday. Wedding's over, most relatives took off, all the douchebag fishermen went back to their Arizona/San Bernardino hellholes and now it's just me and the swim-up bar, mano y mano. Time to show Mexico what U.S. livers are made of.

It all starts off innocently enough at lunch. We hit Las Casitas, owned by the guy who planned our wedding, and enjoy one of their comedy-sized Mango Daquaris. A delicious way to poison vitamin C. Next comes about 4 or 5 hours of sitting in the pool, occasionally floating around, but mostly pounding beers and watching Mexican television. 9 or 10 Dos Equis' later and it's time for dinner. Dinner brings margaritas. They are big and they are strong, so I only get two. Back to poolside, the playing cards come out and I'm able to get another 2 or 3 beers before the bar closes at 10 (it's a monday night and it's sort of an 'old people's' hotel anyway).

Yes, I threw up. To steal a line from Brian Posehn, I puked like a sorority pledge, and by that I mean I called a girl a 'cunt' and vomited on my dress. It's been a long damn time, but I managed to give it all back over the course of the evening. The amazing thing is that I've become so delusional about my incredible ability to hold my liquor that for a while I had convinced myself that I had food poisoning. Once I had a chance to fully recollect just how much I'd abused myself and realized that my wife had eaten all the same stuff I had and wasn't sick, I realized that it was just my own foolish love of the words "una mas" that had done me in.

Anyway, the next day was back down to Loreto, checked into a hotel with english language TV (the 'American TV' network is quite hilarious. Mostly Judge Judy reruns and 20 minutes of headache-inducing montage style commercials for other shows every hour), got some surprisingly good pasta carbonara at the hotel restaurant, and then it was back to the Estados Unidos the next morning.

We both agreed that it'll probably be awhile before we go back to baja. Not that it wasn't really nice and doesn't have incredible food. Just that there's not a whole lot to it and we've seen it and seen it at this point. I'm really curious to check out mainland Mexico and get a taste for the 'real' country and not just the convenient retiring spot for people from Orange County.

Garbage Smells Worse In The Summertime. Television Is No Different

Right around the end of May sweeps, television unbuckles its belt, pulls away from the dining table and lets out a loud, stinky fart that usually lasts until October. Let's crane our nostrils skyward and sniff, sniff, sniff!

DANCING WITH THE STARS: Not since 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here' has a show lied so boldly within the title of the program itself. The Bachelorette? Kelly Monaco? J. Peterman? I might be vaguely interested to see Evander Holyfield in person just to check out the reconstructive work on his ear, but other than that, feh. I was much more star struck the one day that I worked in a Brentwood photo lab and Vicky from the Love Boat came in.

THE CUT: Oooh, just like The Apprentice, but with a charasmatically challenged fashion designer whose clothes have about as much relevance today as Cross Colors. Pee-Yoo.

HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME: Unless you've been dying to know how fat Mike Reno from Loverboy is now or what Kelly Clarkson's music sounds like coming out of the aged piehole of Tiffany, you can probably give this one a pass. I'll watch only to see Vanilla Ice make a hypocritical fool of himself by performing his only hit that he's spent the last couple of years telling everyone he'll never perform again.

HELL'S KITCHEN: Like your reality TV totally scripted and poorly acted? Do you lie awake at night wishing that Simon Cowell could insult cooks as well as singers? For some reason, it's slightly more uncomfortable watching someone berate and humiliate someone whose big dream is being a line cook at Dennys.

WICKEDLY PERFECT: I don't even remember this being on, and now I guess it's over. Finding the next Martha Stewart was a dumb idea even before she went to jail.

TOMMY LEE GOES TO COLLEGE: If you're not ready to kill yourself by August 16th, you will be shortly after.

There it is. You can go back to holding your nose now.

A Message To White Trash Republicans

If you're one of the 'fingers-crossed, lottery playin' members of the republican party (you know the ones I mean. People who don't want to tax the very rich cuz-n' they may be rich real soon if their numbers come up next Wednesday or Saturday), then take a look at this statistic:

Meanwhile, the top 0.1% (in other words, the top thousandth of all taxpayers, 145,000 in all) reap an astonishing 15% of the Bush tax cuts. These people all earn at least $1.6 million a year.

Try to get this through your thicker than frozen molasses soup minds, you heartbreakingly optimistic gambling addicts. Even if you hit the 'super powerball ultra-fuck you mega godzilla' lottery (which you won't), you won't ever, ever, EVER make as much as the people this inbred administration of circle-jerking rich assholes are catering to.

What's that you say? Those people worked hard for their trillions and deserve to keep it? Wrong again, douchewad. 99.9% of the super-rich in this country didn't earn their money through honest means like backbreaking hard work or 'the lottery'. No, most of these people inherited vast sums of money that their grandpappys made through forward-thinking policies like slavery, non-unionized labor and good old fashioned theft and sleazery. Why else do you think our beloved president believes so deeply in using the power of the presidency to help out Jack and Jill Trust Fund? He knows that if he had ever had to actually try and make a living without a safety net, he'd be sucking cock for loose change at any one of our nations fine Greyhound stations.

So quit fooling yourself, you scratch ticket addicted losers. Voting based on unlikely fantasies is not only irresponsible, but just plain dumb.
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SFist Redux

From Absinthes to Zombies (BTW, never order an Absinthe Zombie), a weekly guide to what's what in the San Francisco bar scene. As usual, barrespondent Drew tries to make it sound like he's always out at the classy joints and not really at home checking the toilet tank for that emergency can of Schmidt's he remembers hiding.

Oh yeah, we got class. You better believe it we got class. Ok, fine, you probably knew we were lying by the poor grammatical structure of those first two sentences. But we do want to occasionally pretend we have class, and if there's one city in the world with ample opportunities to fake it, it's this here San Francisco town.

Some people might argue that class can't be faked, that you either have it or you don't, and that the true 'James Bonds' of this world look as suave and debonair shot-gunning dollar Pabsts in a Mission alleyway as they do enjoying a single malt scotch at the Top Of The Mark. And while some may indeed posess that kind of sophistication, the rest of us will have to make do with periodically dabbing on some Drakkar Noir, blowing the cable bill money on some fancy drinks, and posing out more than an Academy of Art alumni meeting.

Martuni's on Market and Valencia is, in our opinion, the greatest place to get your fake on in the whole city. Even if you walk into the place in jeans and a t-shirt, you instantly feel like you belong on a Dean Martin album cover. Dark to the point of near blindness, the atmosphere here immediately makes you feel ten to twenty times 'swankier' than when you walked in.

If you order a beer at Martuni's then there just may be no hope for you at all. Even on a hot and muggy day when an ice cold beer sounds like the perfect cure for what ails you, the environment inside this place commands you to get one of their 'comedy-sized' martinis. Don't worry though, you won't be dissapointed. Expertly made with precision and care by some of the best bartenders in the city, the drinks at this place will quickly make you forget that you ever thought mere hops and barley could ever quench your thirst.

Be careful with your timing here, however, as it does get horrendously crowded once the piano bar fires up and several large cocktails turns into one massive sing-a-long. Even though you may regret it later, Martuni's is actually a really great place to start off an evening of walking around. Just be careful, because if you don't show their martinis the right amount of respect, that walking could turn into crawling in no time flat.

Liver... Out!!

Best of PTE

Best of was easy this week, cause my lazy ass only did one post. And even though it was my only (and you would think really well thought out) post, I managed to make myself look foolish by calling out a certain 'S. O'Neal'...

From last Wednesday, right before the Heat bitch-slapped Detroit in game 5:

Kazaam! Like an urban 'Bewitched'!

Now we can look forward to 2 days of "The Pistons will win it all" talk from the same people who have spent the last two days proclaiming Dwayne Wade to be akin to a unstoppable robot-killing-machine version of Oscar Robertson. I know it wouldn't make for fascinating television, but it would be nice to hear one sports pundit say, "These teams are pretty evenly matched, and since they both have a tendency to simply not show up every once in awhile, predicting who will win game by game is utterly pointless.

The person who really needs to stop, however, is Shaquille O'Neal. Yes, yes, we get it, the Lakers were idiots for letting you go, you were more dominating this year than Kobe Bryant and how dare they etc, etc. You got 5 rebounds last night! That's one less than Quentin Richardson got on Monday night.

Granted, Shaq is a ridiculous freak of nature. He changed the game and officials have never known what to do about it. But he also invented a strategy wherein you can win games by fouling him because he's so awful from the charity stripe. Can you really make the argument that the best player of all time can be the worst of his entire era in one very vital part of the game?

So Shaq, I beg you, don't give any more interviews until you win the whole thing (which you won't). Show some humility, try and pretend you're not aging gracelessly and maybe some day you can backup Darko Milicic and win your fourth ring.

Travelogue, Part Three

There's always an element of risk when you have a wedding in Mexico. 'Si Senor' is just the spanish equivalent of Jamaica's 'no problem', meaning that upon hearing it there's about a 40-60 chance that what has been agreed upon and guaranteed will even come close to happening.

Luckily, my brother and his new bride are incredibly easy going and don't subscribe to the U.S. philosophy that your wedding is the most important goddamn thing in the world and your one chance in life to show everyone you've ever met how much money your family can scrape together to spend on important stuff like table centerpieces and tuxedo rentals. Like I said, it's lucky my brother wasn't stressed about any of this because I got the feeling that the person in charge of the reception woke up about noon and said, "Oh shit! That person that gave me that money a couple of months ago probably wants something in return for it. I'd better get down to the local 7-11 and throw something together!".

(Let me just be perfectly clear at this point that I still had a great time. The guests all still had a great time, and more importantly, my brother and his wife had a great time. The only reason I bring any of this stuff up is because I find the sound of my own typing to be soothing.)

After about a two hour delay, during which we all began to get cranky from lack of food, the 'appetizers' arrived. These consisted of a pineapple for each table, stuck with toothpicks to make it look like HellRaiser and covered in pieces of hot dog, an odd mystery cheese and jarred olives. Yummy! And then came the buffet. First up, shrimp. Good, you can't screw up the shrimp down here. Oh wait a minute, you can if you cook it until it's black and cover it in some sort of mole sauce without shelling it. Turns out you can really screw up shrimp. I stand corrected. Then is what I assume is potato salad because there's an uholy amount of it. It's literally a mountain of salad on a plate but due to faulty lighting, I'm unable to get a read on what's in it. Upon tasting it, I was puzzled to find out it was in fact tuna salad, not mexican style or anything, just your run of the mill sandwich spread. Ok, two for two. Finally, the only other items I tried were a black bean and cheese mixture (not bad) and some chicken, apparently cooked the same way as the shrimp. The wedding cake had not arrived yet and actually hadn't by the time my mother wanted to go back to the hotel at around ten o'clock (I was told that it did show up shortly after that and was delicious. bummer).

The other two notable aspects to the evening were that every local in town seemed to show up and help themselves and that most of the dogs in the area were present.

And here's where I've got to give my brother, his wife, and the 20 or so friends of theirs that showed up some credit. They all had a blast. No one gave a shit about minutia like having the perfect food or making sure every stupid little planned thing went off perfectly. They all collectively shrugged their shoulders, realized they were on a beach in Baja Mexico and had a blast. And as easy going as I like to think I am, I have to say I can't guarantee I would've been so level-headed about it all (at least not the dogs anyway, but I'm really not that much of a pet person).

So now with the planned festivities out of the way, we could now get down to the business of hardcore relaxation and drinking myself stupid. Next time, I learn of my own mortality with the kind assistance of a mango daquari, 2 margaritas and 10-12 Dos Equis special lagers.

Thursday Billy Joel / Alan King Blogging

A quick question; Out of everything Billy Joel mentions in the song and video 'We Didn't Start The Fire', why is it that the one thing that seems to anger him the most is 'Cola Wars'? Something to look for the next time you watch.

More Rice Paste, Nuni?

Everyone got their tickets for the upcoming Roskilde Festival in Denmark? It's your last chance to get trampled by Danes until July's Midtfyn Fest. That's ok, I can't make it either.

However, reading their website is quite a lot of fun. In fact, reading anything translated from Danish is usually quite entertaining. It helps if you imagine some really loud Dane shouting these descriptions at you and putting their hands out to the side like they're surfing.

Here's some of my favorite examples from the festival's list of bands:

DIE ANARCHISTISCHE ABENDUNTERHALTUNG -
If Frank Zappa, Vivaldi and John Coltrane have something in common!

DEVENDRA BANHART -
Fragile and clattering, with a characteristic voice that tells the most unusual tales

THE BLUE VAN (DK) -
Swagger, attitude and sound as in London in the year 1966

DATAROCK (N) -
Sounds both like data and rock

THE DRESDEN DOLLS (US) -
Bold and courageous replication of the bombastic sound of cabaret

ESKOBAR (S) -
Charming humour and out-going approach to be enjoyed with unstoppable appetite.

THE GAME (US) -
A golden evidence that the gangsta style is alive and well

THE HIDDEN CAMERAS (Can) -
Timeless pop music advocating sweaty and dirty copulation

KAADA/PATTON (N/US) -
Incomparable symbiosis in a genre without a name

THE PONYS (US) -
The Ponys have been racing in the time machine - and remind us that rock is timeless

SNOOP DOGG (US) -
Still among the biggest dogs!

SVARTBAG (DK) -
Appealing mixture of droning noise and repetitive space rock

THIEVERY CORPORATION (US) -
Invites you to either lie down or move your body in fiery dance

TYS TYS (DK) -
Showers all listeners in moon dust from the stage

And finally, my favorite. I nearly 'Orgasted' all over myself when I read it:

BRIAN WILSON (US) -
Pop music as an unforgettable and orgastic experience. Smile – it is infectious!!