Caves of poop

Last night, this guy was being a dick at the bar. Loud, drunk, obnoxious, full of himself. After playing in the first band, he came up to the bar and demanded two napkins to put on his beers, so he and his girlfriend could go out and smoke. Then he placed the beers directly in front of me and the well, so that if I had to serve a customer I would have to reach around them. I asked him if he wouldn't mind moving them off to the side.

"Oh," he said, "I'd hate to get in the way of the busy bar."

The bar, as you might've guessed, wasn't that busy.

If he wasn't such a dick, I would've held my tongue. It's tough getting people out during festival season, when there are 40 million bands to see. But, no.

"Are you in the first band?" I asked.

"Yep."

"Well, I guess then it's kind of your fault, isn't it, that the bar isn't so busy?"

"I'm not the headliner," he sputtered. Wow, so you didn't bother to bring any folks out to the show because you're not playing last? Or second or third? "When I headlined here, we sold the place out. With the Monolith."

And then it all clicked. I was there for that show too, several years ago. And the guy had been a super dick then, too. How did I remember? Because he'd been just as loud and drunk and stupid then, until he'd found out I wrote for the Weekly, and then he'd been very apologetic.

Needless to say, Cameron didn't invite him to the pants-off dance-off.

Here's this week's Grumpy Guy & Sunshine strip:

One kind of sick

For the first time in two weeks, I woke up today feeling better this morning. Not great, but better. Then I rode my bike to get OJ and drop off a Netflix, and now I feel dizzy and exhausted again. Whatever this illness is, it blows. I've got the mucous-y tissues to prove it.

On Wednesday, I decided to quarantine myself, so I've spent the last three days inside, only leaving to get provisions like chicken soup and the mail. I've watched about 14 episodes of the Office (did you know that Karen's parents are Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton (Mod Squad, Twin Peaks)? That's some hot shit genes) and two movies and finished one book and started another. I missed out on the Elvis Costello concert, Kathleen and Kristina's African Food Safari, the Warriors clinching victory, and several Film Fest movies I'd bought tickets for. I'd be going stir crazy if I had the energy for it.

In the process of writing a preview for the Elvis show, I made a playlist of my favorite tunes of his. It's 45 songs long. I realized that I know all the words to My Aim Is True and Blood and Chocolates. It's funny, but when that latter record came out when I was a freshman in college, I really understood and appreciated it. The weird thing is that it's sooo mean-spirited and bitter, and I was this naïve 18-year-old-kid who'd only been in one relationship, a relationship that I'd ended myself. So why exactly did I so fully understand Elvis' misery and bitterness?

Anyhoo, here's my top 5 Elvis Costello songs at this moment:

1. "Radio, Radio" from This Year's Model
2. "Pads, Paws, and Claws," from Spike
3. "Pay It Back," from My Aim Is True
4. "Blue Chair," from Blood & Chocolate
5. "Getting Mighty Crowded," from Get Happy

Hopefully, I will have the energy to spin discs at tomorrow's Three Kinds of Stupid party. It's at Olive, and Brent made this flyer especially for it. See how multi-talented the Stupids are?

Here's part two of the latest GG&S saga. By the way, you can make the cartoons bigger by clicking on them.

A clusterfuck of glamour

Where's Dani Leone?

That's what I kept thinking on Saturday night, when In Bed w/ Fairy Butch took over the Rickshaw. If you've never seen IBWFB, which wouldn't surprise me, it's sort of a cabaret/game show/strip club/dance party all rolled into one -- with a lot of FTM action.

These were hardcore Females to Males, meaning they'd gone thru the change long enough ago that they were now losing their hair on their scalp and gaining their hair on their chins.

The night spawned many questions. Like: Why does every FTM grow a goatee? Aren't beards more manly than goatees? Or moustaches? If you're a woman dating a man who used to be a woman, do you think of yourself as a lesbian or bi-sexual or quasi-hetero? And if you're a woman who used to be a man now dating a man, do you call yourself gay? Also: how many drinks does it take to get you to climb onstage and start sticking your tongue way down the throat of a stranger? How about give a lapdance to two blindfolded strangers at the same time?

Alright, my best line of the night: After a woman simulated a very loud orgasm onstage, I turned to the ladies queued up at the bar and said, "I bet you all want what she's having." Sure, I stole it from When Harry Met Sally, but still.

Here's the new Grumpy Guy & Sunshine. It's a cliffhanger! Part two will come on Friday, which is the usual GG&S day.

That one's headed for New Hampshire

Last weekend, I spent a lot of time in bars, watching baseball. Not exactly optimum weekend activity, but at least the weather wasn't that nice. I don't have a TV so I had to make do, watching the Red Sox play the Yankees at Cato's, Ben & Nicks, and Barclay's.

On Sunday, the Sox-Yanks game was on at 5 p.m. -- prime no-other-sport watching time. Except on this Sunday, Barclay's had advertised they were showing the NBA and NHL playoffs. So after 2 and 1/3 innings of the game, they switched over to a hockey game. Right when Manny Ramirez was coming to bat.

Red Sox fans can be some of the worst people on the planet -- just a bunch of very white, very entitled jackasses braying like donkeys who think they rule the world. So naturally, they went nuts, whining and moping and saying they would take their business elsewhere. It was embarrassing, really. If they were too stupid to check the other games that were on at that time, then they got what was coming to them.

About 10 minutes later, some guy behind me was moaning to a girl who just walked in. "Did you hear what happened?" he said. "My friend just called to say the Sox hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs."

I turned to him, unable to keep my mouth shut. "Your friend is putting you on," I assured him. "There's no way."

"Well, I guess…" he said.

Come on, the chances of the same team hitting four home runs in a row is, like, one in a million. Or, as it turned out, according to a mathematician, one in 1.4 million. And the chance that JD Drew, who connected after Manny and Mike Lowell and before Jason Varitek, would do it two sequential years, after being involved in 4 homers in a row with the Dodgers last year? One in 14 million.

Damn hockey game.

love is a book on tape

I've been reading a lot more lately, partially because of the excellent Full Present Capture (FPC) of Christmas and my birthday, and partially because when I was home for the holidays and had nothing better to do, I remembered how much I liked getting lost in a good book.

Here's what's been read and what's on the nightstand:

You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem. I already told you about it.

Playground by Jennifer Saginor. Memoir about a girl who grew up in the Playboy Mansion, because her dad was Hugh Hefner's personal drug doc. Ultimately repetitive and sad (just like her coke-filled parties), but boy what a crazy life. Hard to believe she survived all the drugs and guns and Columbian mafiosa at age 15-18.

Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley. I'd never read anything by Smiley, because all the books seemed to be about horses or hills or touchy feely lives in the wilderness. But this one's about a bunch of people that are either related or tangentially related hanging out in the Hollywood Hills right when the Iraq War starts. It's got some interesting insight into parent-child relationships, aging ("I think upon retirement you ought to have to apply to continue to exist," one character says), and sexual dynamics (although I do find the older characters' brazen way of talking about sex discomforting, which might be because it reminds me of my parents talking about sex or maybe it's a way that that generation thinks, and therefore writes, about sex, which is different than mine). More than anything, it's about storytelling, since most of the time they all sit around and tell stories, many of which are pretty damn interesting.

Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta. Kathleen said it's good, so I'm sure it is. About '70s radicals living in the '90s, which sounds like a great topic.

The Brothers K by David James Duncan. My dad loaned this to me, and I started it but for some reason got sidetracked. It's about religion and baseball, the first of which usually bores me and the second of which can be hard to write about. But it's also about Vietnam and families, so I'm going to go back to it.

Graceland by Chris Abani. A Thaddeus choice from the book swap. Elvis impersonator in Africa, which sounds promising.

Heat by Bill Buford. Essays about food from this New Yorker writer. I loved his piece on the egg chefs of Vegas. Will give you the munchies.

Love Is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. Rolling Stone writer remembers his deceased wife and the '90s mix tapes that wooed her.

What Is the What by Dave Eggers. Really nice cover.

Here's the new comic strip:

yo, bum rush the queen is dead

Man, not feeling that great. Got some weird virus that makes me only want to sleep and/or watch bad teen sex comedies from the '80s (like Private Resort, featuring a verrrry young Johnny Depp as a teen horndog) all day.

Maybe I picked up something from the truly bizarre Rickshaw weekend just past. Friday was Yo Majesty and Sugar & Gold, which I didn't realize going in would be such an odd juxtaposition. S&G's audience is very hetero, while Yo Majesty's…well, they like the ladies and the ladies like them.

We've had ladies get topless at the club before -- most recently during Music For Animals' set, when a girl actually got on a guy's shoulders and flashed the band, just like if she was at a Crue show -- but never the performers. (Well, save for Jenny, but she wasn't onstage and she's Jenny.) But one of the women in Yo Majesty whipped off her shirt and many of the audience, both on and off the stage, followed suit. Including a certain lead singer of a certain local band, who we hadn't seen in the club for ages. It was pandemonium.

The next night there were another 50 people onstage, but this time they were gay Hispanic gangstaristas and their galpals, and they were all waving tulips. Because it was This Charming Band, a Smiths cover band, and for some bizarre reason Morrissey (or anyone who sounds like him) has a huge Hispanic following. At least it's easier to clean up tulips than it is vomit.

Other odd things: Cameron gave me a Len cd for my birthday, and I thought it was going to be nu-metal rap-rock, but it turns out it's really fun rap-rock. Kind of if the Beasties were from Canada and into trip-hop around 1999. I don't know how I missed their "Steal the Sunshine" song, but apparently it was a big hit. I'm kind of in love with the girl singer of the band -- check the video out.

One last thing: At his Q&A, Jonathan Lethem said he'd recently recorded You Don't Love Me Yet for sale as a book on whatever, the first time that he'd done it. And he'd realized that there were some parts of his book that weren't that good, that they'd been written on days he wasn't that interested in the novel. Which was really interesting to me to hear -- that such a talented writer would let his off days make it into the finished product. It was inspiring in a weird way.

Kind of like how this blog entry kind of sucks, and I'm letting you read it.

that's entertainment

Did you hear? Monday is the new, um, Wednesday. This means you should either be humping or humping over to SF. Because there's two awesome things going on next Monday.

First, Jonathan Lethem reads at the Booksmith. I just read his new book, You Don't Love Me Yet, which had me at the title, seeing as how it was taken from a Vulgar Boatmen tune. Lethem himself has called it "a profoundly unimportant book," which is probably true. Michele compared it to one of Graham Greene's "entertainments," and that's spot on -- it's an entertaining and ridiculous look at a Los Angeles rock band that suddenly finds itself being popular, thanks to the lyrics of a mysterious phone caller. (Shame about the weirdly too-pat ending, though.) Once again, Lethem comes off like a guy who thinks like somebody we'd know: smart, clever, witty, a bit nerdy. He even has an Open Source-inspired page on his web site, in which he offers up short stories for film adaptation -- all you have to do is pay him a buck and sign a paper.

Secondly, the Broken West is playing the Du Nord that night. Who? Just the best Teenage Fanclub-esque (ha ha, indie-rock joke there) band going right now. With a touch of Wilco, the Pernice Brothers, even Big Star and maybe Tom Petty. Basically, super catchy tunes with pretty harmonies and rockin' guitar hooks that sound like they'd be easy to make but really aren't. New album on Merge, which seems to be have the magic touch these days. Extra points for handclaps.

Here's episode three of Grumpy Guy & Sunshine. Happy Friday!

so many films, so little popcorn

The San Francisco International Film Festival is coming up at the end of April. I used to really go nuts and watch two or three films a day, but now I have job, sort of (or three, sort of) and anyways my bones start to creek after a couple hours. The selection seems pretty decent this year, at least better than the last couple ones. I mean, a double dose of Parker Posey! Sadly, they don't book as many French films as they used to, back when Peter Scarlet was in charge, but I still managed to get tix for a couple.

Here's what I'm going to see, in order of showing (a * indicates a PFA showing):

Grandhotel: "This rueful romantic comedy centers on the travails of a 30-year-old virgin and obsessive weather-watcher and his quirky coworkers at a breathtakingly scenic hotel atop a mountain in Bohemia." Maybe there'll be someone with my last name, which means "stricken by fear" in Czech.

Broken English: "It’s Sex and the City with a dose of Xanax and a hit of ’30s screwball charm." O-kay. Well, it stars Parker Posey and Gena Rowlands, and it's directed by the latter's daughter, Zoe Cassavetes (yes, that Cassavetes).

Fay Grim*: More Posey, this time starring in the sequel to Henry Fool, Hal Hartley's awesomely awesome 1997 film. All the cast is back, with the added bonus of the always eccentric Jeff Goldblum.

Murch*: A doc about renowned film editor Edward Murch (Apocalypse Now, many others). Boring? Hell nah.

Flanders*: A Simpsons spin-off? No, just another creepy character study by the French guy who Humanite (featuring a mentally unstable detective who sniffs suspects' scalps). This one is a war film set in Northern France and in the Middle East, and sure to be very disturbing and slow.

Dans Paris: "Christophe Honoré’s wistful tale of two brothers in the City of Lights invokes the jazzy highs and bridge-jumping lows of love, family and reading in bed." Ending the fest with depression and topless book reading. Yeah.

There's a bunch more, like Rocket Science, Emma's Bliss, Reprise, and Ad Lib Night, but a guy's gotta blog sometime.

Also: Did you know that Stephen Colbert has an ice cream named after him? Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream, with chocolate covered waffle cones and butterscotch in vanilla ice cream. How is it? Well, it's strangely addictive and addictively strange, just like Colbert.

mr. natural rides again

Last night I went with Michele to see the R. Crumb exhibit at Yerba Buena. It's pretty comprehensive -- they even have the original comic books that Crumb and his brother concocted in the early '60s, as seen in the documentary about him.

I've never been too huge a fan of his content, especially the '60s and '70s stuff which feels dated and silly. But he certainly is an amazing artist. The detail in the backgrounds and the expressiveness of his characters are unbelievable. As for the content, Michele nailed it when she said, "He's all id." I wish I could be more like that in my writing. The thing that's amazing about him is he's not afraid to be repulsive or un-PC; he's comfortable being a freak.

They showed a video of him and all the other Zap cartoonists collaborating on a strip, and he looked so different from them all. They had beards and long hair and hippie clothes, whereas he was wearing a suit and a hat and big glasses and a massive goofy grin. It was the happiest I'd ever seen him; usually he's depicted as removed and sarcastic and anti-social, but here he was actually goofing off with S Clay Wilson and others.

Another cool thing Yerba Buena has is these cell phone set ups that you can dial into. You can listen to Crumb and his wife Aline talk about art or old-time San Francisco (before the hippie hordes and yuppies ruined it, according to him) or meatballs (a famous strip of his, inspired by LSD, like many of his early ones). Again, he sounded way less snarky than I imagined him. Maybe living in France will soften anyone. It's all that pate.

In other news, I just changed my IRA to a socially conscious mutual fund. This may be the most boring thing I've ever written about. But for some reason it made me very happy, like I was actually getting Wells Fargo to use their evil powers for good. Then again, I bet the fund isn't exactly devoid of evil companies, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Now for a step in the wrong direction. An ode to Crumb, I guess. Here's the second installment of "Grumpy Guy & Sunshine."

gimme extra action

Last Friday, I went out with Joanna and her brother Steven, who is about to ship out to Iraq for his second tour of duty. Second tour of duty! I can't think of anything funny about that.

I wanted to ask him a lot of questions about Iraq and being in the Army, but I couldn't because Joanna was there, and she was freaked out enough as it was. But I did ask him about a recent San Francisco Magazine article I read that said that 20,000 soldiers have gone AWOL since the start of the Iraq War, according to the Army. And you know if they're actually admitting to that many, then the real number is far bigger (some say double). The reason given for the soldiers quitting? Not because they're scared new recruits, but because they're old timers tired of the Army accepting poor canon fodder (ie ex-cons and gangsters). Steven admitted that there was a lot more violence, theft, and drama amongst the troops in the last couple of years of his service. You don't read about any of that in the papers.

I decided that Steven needed to see something fun crazy before he went off to a world that was scary crazy, so I took him to see the Extra Action Marching Band. They're doing a residency at 12 Galaxies to raise money for their European tour. What I wouldn't give to be an unsuspecting burgher in Bavaria when they troop through town. Anyway, it was a good show, as usual, with some of the dancers crowd surfing right at us.


The next day, I had to get up and DJ Pipsqueak a Go Go. Hung over. For 200 screaming, running, beach ball bouncing kids. But it was fun, especially when the MC, who looked as hungover as I felt, said, "If you're going to throw a beach ball, make sure you hit someone." Or when a Devil-ette asked what could be found on playgrounds and a girl answered "Fairies," to which she responded that lots of odd things went on with fairies on playgrounds. And then there was our soundman, Waldo, who seemed to have his hands full with CW's kids.


That night, after I'd napped in Brent's car for 30 blissful minutes, I worked the Ming & Ping show. This is one of the weirder phenomenon's I've witnessed at the Rickshaw. One Asian guy pretending to be two identical twins, singing duets via video feed, while a guy named Monkey jumps around, and the crowd sings every word. How do they know about this odd act? They get no mainstream press, they release their own records, they play a weird brand of antiquated, catchy synth-techno-pop. Very kitschy, which may be why it appeals to club kids, boutique workers, and Marina nerds (which I didn't know existed until now).

But the crowd was nothing compared to the oddballs who showed up on Monday for MC Chris. Apparently he plays a character called MC Poopy Pants on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and he has a large (and I do mean large) pot-smoking suburban teen following. When the ipod began playing "No Future," I thought there couldn't be a more serendipitous selection. His songs were very TKS, in that they were stupid and catchy and featured lyrics about vegetarianism and grandma screwing. Not everyone can pull that off or get a couple hundred stoned teenagers to jump around. Of course, it helps if you offer them posters with the words "fuck" and "goddamn" on them.


I guess if this was a funny caption, it'd say something about Chris Cross. Or maybe Christopher Cross. Ha ha. Hoo.

grumpy guy and sunshine

So, I've been trying to get more organized lately. You know, like a post-birthday resolution. It's easy to fuck away the day sitting at home, diddling on the computer. So now I'm trying to go to a cafe in the morning and work on creative stuff (a rewrite of my teen novel, bulking up of a book proposal), and then go to a different cafe or home to do work (Rickshaw booking, article writing, nose picking).

So far, so good. Except for Fridays. Fridays are just too hard to do much, especially creatively. The weekend starts staring me down, like a cougar eyeing a gazelle (or something, my nature knowledge is legendarily sketchy). So I've started doing comics again on Fridays, especially those when I have to work at night. Makes me feel like I've gotten something interesting accomplished, even if it's relatively minor.

This is how Grumpy Guy and Sunshine got started. It's about a grumpy guy and a hippie girl. They sit around, they talk, they drink coffee. I'll put them up here on occasion. Be forewarned: they're super lo-fi and maybe a bit off the cuff. We're talking no pencil, no editing, just right to the notebook.

Here's the first one, entitled "Shoe-in."

Rock 'n' Roll never forgets

If you would've told me 10 years ago that I'd be having a great time watching a Bob Seger cover band, I'd have thought you were nuts. But there I was at the Hemlock on Saturday, rocking out to Total BS, a tribute outfit comprised of hipsters from Harold Ray: Live In Concert, Comets on Fire, and Drunk Horse.

"Rock 'n' Roll Never Forgets," "Hollywood Hills," "Night Moves," "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man." I loved them all.


It's freaking weird how the times -- and people -- change. When I was growing up, all I knew was classic rock and Top 40, save for what little jazz and weird noise came in fuzzily from a nearby college station. I listened to all that '70s stuff like Boston and Styx and Bob Seger, along with the hippie shit my dad turned me onto. But somewhere around 1984, I started discovering stranger artists like the Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, and Kate Bush. They felt like home to me, like I was some foster child visiting my birth parents' house for the first time. In my small town, I always felt like an outsider, like everyone thought I was an idiot for reading books or watching Casablanca or eating whole wheat bread. But these songs were like a beacon, like some message from aliens telling me that the mothership would eventually find me. (I'm sure it's easier today, where some miserable kid in Iowa can tune into the Internet and discover there's plenty of freaks just like him.)

Anyway, after I discovered indie-rock, I started equating classic rock with the small-mindedness of my hometown and therefore hating on it. Only recently did I come to re-appreciate some of the songs of my childhood, although I still felt guilty about liking them.

Late last year, upon Chris' suggestion, a bunch of us made CDs of our 10 favorite guilty pleasure songs. It got me thinking a lot about what made something sound good now. Why, for instance, did Bon Jovi still sound awful to me, while Bob Seger did not? Why was Billy Joel more embarrassing than Steve Miller? Was Kenny Loggins a genius or a hack? And was there anything remotely forgivable about the Spin Doctors? (Answer to that last one: Still no, but wait a few years.)

Well, here's what I came up with for the GP disc, expanded to 15 songs. I've tried to say why I like them and why I'm embarrassed by them.

1. Bob Seger - "Night Moves." Yeah, I just said how great he is, but he's also kind of silly, here, talking about being a teenager and working on his night moves. The track's like a commercial approximation of Van Morrison's Celtic soul and Bruce Springsteen's adolescent poetry, but it's so epic I just don't care.

2. Billy Joel - "Only the Good Die Young." A bizarre appropriation of doo wop, more adolescent angst (a pattern forming?), euphoric in its snotty white boy soul.

3. John Cougar (before he was Mellencamp) - "Hurt So Good." God, what a hook, the kind made for air guitar marathons. Decadent and romantic and stoopid, with tons of handclaps.

4. .38 Special - "Hold On Loosely." I have very little tolerance for southern rock. The good liberal in me can't forgive them for that whole slavery thing, the continuing waving of the Confederate flag, their desertion of the Democratic Party. But for some reason, I'm a sucker for this hook.

5. Kenny Loggins - "Footloose." Ugh, those synthesized drums, that organ, that voice. Sooo bad it hurts. But so happy too. I mean, he's rebelling against a preacher who won't allow dancing. How can you not get behind that?

6. Olivia Newton John - "Physical." I was going to go with "Xanadu" because when I was in seventh grade the music class teacher asked us to introduce ourselves by saying what our favorite song was, and I chose that synth-pop soundtrack hit and was completely shocked by the rest of the class' hooting reaction. How could they not love Olivia the way I did? But I listened to the song again and it didn't hold up, not the way "Physical" did. Still gets me hottt.

7. Ready for the World - "Oh Sheila." More bad '80s drums, a fake British accent, and pseudo-Prince grunts. Way over the top, way catchy.

8. Mr. Big - "To Be With You." Okay, this is the most embarrassing one. A trashy acoustic ballad by an '80s hair metal band. I can't explain it, I really can't.

9. Bobby McFerrin - "Don't Worry Be Happy." Yes, we're going chronological. And yes if I have any hipster cred left, it's gone now. Come on, imagine if that guy from the Police Academy movies was a singer -- this is what he'd sound like.

10. Easy-E - "Gimme Dat Nut." I played this seriously misogynist rap tune at a TKS party. I don't know what I was thinking, except that it's soooo catchy.

11. Montell Jordan - "This Is How We Do It." Quite possibly the whitest black rapper ever. When he says "shorties" and "faded," he sounds like Sam on that episode of Cheers when he rapped the sports news. Hell of a groove though.

12. Sheryl Crow - "All I Wanna Do." I am a sucker for Rickie Lee Jones knock offs -- you know, the kind of sexy female singer who seems like she'd be fun to drink a bottle of whiskey with.

13. Lil' Kim - "Tongue Song." I am also a sucker for raunchy female rappers. Honestly, if I ever find a woman who loves this kind of stuff as much as she loves Belle & Sebastian, I will marry her.

14. The Killers - "Mr. Brightside." I've skipped most of the '90s, but here's a modern rock fave from the '00s. Big dumb emoriffic fun. Whiny and unstoppable.

15. T-Pain - "I’m N Luv Wit a Stripper." Bad spelling, minimalist hook, and a moronic lyrics ("she pop and she roll and she rollin'/ she climbin' that pole,'n"). One of the most bizarre ballads to hit the Top 10 in years. So wrong on so many levels, but after you've seen a bunch of 15 year olds singing it, it's hard not to love.

March (Donut) Madness

Danapalooza II's Great Temescal Donut Challege was a raging success (although, if you're like me, you had to endure a major sugar come down afterwards). Here's how it worked: I procured tasty treats from three local donuterias and then placed them unlabeled on plates. Attendees then tried all three kinds of either glazed raised, glazed old-fashioned, chocolate glazed, or crumb, and then rated them from one to five. The real masochists also compared them to the dozen from Krispy Kreme and Colonial Donuts, which partygoers brought on their own. And here are the final results:

Glazed Old Fashioned:
Golden Gate Donuts (42nd and Telegraph) - 18 ("A darker coloring.")
Lee's Donuts (40th and Telegraph) - 16 ("Somewhat whimsical aroma of deep fry.")
Lee's Donuts (Broadway and 45th) - 10 ("Light & crumbly -- wow!")

Chocolate Covered:
GG - 28 ("When you sink your teeth into this one you think, 'I'm really eating a donut at this moment!'")
Lee's 40th - 26 ("A totally average donut.")
Lee's Bway - 13 ("Terrible. Stale. Out of a box?")

Glazed Raised:
GG - 25 ("Light and sticky sweet. This is what plain glazed should be like.")
Lee's 40th - 20.5 ("Tasted old but was okay.")
Lee's Bway - 18 ("Bad donut.")

Crumb:
GG - 21 ("The best! Soft inside, crystally borderline crunchy coating.")
Lee's 40th - 22 ("The best!")
Lee's Bway - 16 ("Meh.")

So there you have it. Golden Gate takes three out of four. One other thought: Krispy Kremes taste the best the next day, although Colonial's chocolate cake donut was surprisingly fresh as well.


As for the Photo Contest, here's some suggestions for the identity of the sharply dressed man in the front door photo:

"He used to live here. … At night, he and Dan bongo together at Lake Merritt."
"Many music journalists claim he has been a pivotal figure in the history of rock 'n' roll."
"Leonard Nimoy. Or a guy from Ottawa who teaches ceramics and sings tenor."
"Insurance agent by day, Turkish undercover cop by night, ladies man through and through."
"His name could be Waldo [sic] or Harold."
"This is a photo of my first boyfriend, Stan Bernowitz. He really took advantage of me. … I had been unable to have an orgasm because my clitoris was not in my throat, like Stan said."

Yikes!


Other highlights of the week:
Watching Jeffrey Lewis sing songs that he illustrated with his own comics. Meeting a union organizer/burlesque artist with an MBA from the London School of Economics.
Seeing Eric's ecstatic look when he started dancing to his old DAT tapes of the Big Wu (and seeing Elly's stomach-pat hippie dance). Hanging out with Shana and Victoria for too brief a time. Drinking Botswanan liquer, eating BYOW homemade cupcakes, tossing back good tequila while listening to Stereo Total at the Make-Out Room, having a whole back room full of friends at Suriya Thai. Discovering that soccer and shotgunned beer is a good hangover cure. Total present capture, as Laura called it. Understanding that getting older is weird, but it can be fun too.

I could say something mushy about how my friends make life worth living but I won't. That'd be too corny.

Why do I have to be Mr. Pink?

Friday was one of the weirdest Rickshaw nights ever. Weirder than Robin Williams partying with the Club ID boys. Weirder than frat hippies drinking shots from a ski contraption. Weirder than Bobby rolling under a pile of coats on New Year's Eve.

See, the Russians were back in town. Previously, the promoter had brought us the Russian Tom Waits, the Russian Bob Marley, and the Russian Melissa Etheridge. (Only the first artist was actually billed that way; the others were how we came to describe them. This activity got a bit out of control, as you will see.)

This time it was supposed to be RTW coming back, with the added excitement of a 16-year-old's birthday party. But the US government, in its infinite wisdom, felt that it would send a message. Nothing says "We're tougher than you" than not letting a Tom Waits impersonator into your country.

So, instead we got the Russian Bob Mould. Seriously. He was big and bald and made a huge racket even though he was playing solo. Just like Bob Mould. The crowd ate him up. Of course, the crowd was heavily lubricated. I bet most of the people there had never been to New York, but they sure knew about Long Island.

One guy -- with his shirt unbuttoned farther than most guys in Long Island -- got a bit too wasted. So wasted that it was rather comical. He couldn't decide which he'd rather do: fight a guy or drink his beer. He kept grappling with one and then switching to the other. Even though he was only 5'2", it took three guys to toss him out (and only one girl to step on his glasses).

After Russian Bob finished, the night got weirder. The birthday girl's parents had hired a DJ to play what sounded like bad candy raver psi-trance from 1993. The Russians immediately ran for their credit cards like Gavin Newsom for a bottle blonde (or a good bottle of merlot). And the teenagers? They stayed upstairs, played strip foosball, and committed some of the most vigorous and disturbing dry humping to grace our harrowed halls.

Finally, it was time to go home. As I was taking out the recycling, the Russian Steve Buscemi stumbled up to me, mumbling something. "I'm sorry, what?" I asked. He leaned in and slurred, "I want to thank you for the kind service." Well, I couldn't shake hands since both hands were full, and he seemed to want to thank me physically. So he leaned in further, and I realized that he was going to do some continental air kiss, like in the movies or in France. (The one time I had gone to visit Chris in Paris in 1999, I had made a fool of myself by kissing cheek instead of air. I had hated the air kiss ever since. If you're going to kiss, kiss like the Italians. Full on.) Only, the Russian Steve Buscemi wasn't interested in an air kiss. He planted one right on my left cheek.


The Russian Steve Buscemi had surprisingly soft lips.

Beuller, Beuller, Beuller...

I had a very Brent-like moment at the last night of Noise Pop. I was tending bar, and this woman came up and ordered a glass of wine. Then she stopped.

"Wait, I know you," she said.

I looked at her doubtfully.

"Yeah, we made out once."


I looked some more. Nope, nothing at all in the memory banks. "Sorry," I said, "I don't think so, I've got a pretty good memory for that."

"Yes," she said, "we did. We went to Ocean Beach at 4 in the morning. It was freezing. My name is Kelly."

You know that moment in Secrets and Lies where the mom remembers that she could in fact be the mom of this black woman because she did actually have a one-night stand with a black man? Well, that's probably what my face looked like.


"Oh, heyyyyy," I said, "you used to live in Berkeley, right?"

We had met at a party at Victoria's massive Mission Street loft. She was one of the few women I've ever successfully picked up at a party. We had made out - and more - over two occasions, including that night on a blanket on Ocean Beach and another time after a bizarre Oakland warehouse party in which Jake's friend Hans played stand-up bass to accompany his trapeze artist girlfriend. And she'd been going to school with Rolf in his Psych program, and had tried hitting on him and Chris a week after we met.

And here she was. I couldn't see the same person in her at all, save for the long blonde hair. She looked heavier, more conservative, older (duh), and, well, shorter than I remembered. But I didn't say any of that. I was the model of restraint for once. I gave her the wine for free, and I didn't see her again the rest of the night. It made me wonder how many other people I've "made out" with are wandering around the Rickshaw, or other places I frequent. I just read about how spouses are GPSing each other's cars these days, trying to catch each other at infidelities. Soon, we'll be able to map out our entire lives on a big video screen. I thought about making a map of SF, showing all the spots I've eaten dinner or gone to bars or made out with people.


Oh yeah, the Spinto Band ruled. They were the perfect embodiment of a TKS band: bouncy, cute, clever, and catchy, full of fun covers and goofy energy. Like the Muppets if they were college kids from Delaware. And I have a new favorite local band: The Old Fashioned Way, a 7-piece indie-pop orchestra of boys and girls with a main singer Asian guy with a super-deep voice. Like Stephin Merritt fronting Architecture in Helsinki. Very high school band atmosphere, in the best way.

Pinheads and Noise Pop

It's Noise Pop, all the time this week. Last night, I decided to skip the festival for the first time in days, and I actually dreamt that John Vanderslice was popping all around me.

Okay, not really. But it wouldn't have surprised me.


Tuesday at Mezzanine w/ Freedm:

Freedm is just another word for nothing left to lose, and, um, Doc Martens. Really, this '90s revival is getting out of hand. What's next, free flannel shirts at shows? At least Doc M brought along a free photo booth, which I took part with two loverly former editors from West Coast Performer.


David Cross: I couldn't hear him when he was MCing. He djed a very Three Kinds of Stupid set though - highlighted by "Jet Boy Jet Girl" - and came upstairs to stand next to me for about an hour while he chatted up some girl he'd met at All Tomorrow's Parties.

Extra Action Marching Band: This was one of their more sedate performances, which made me want to go see them tonight at Balazo Gallery, where they'd get really sweaty and freaky. They seem like old friends now, even though I don't know any of them. Remember that Thanksgiving dinner show where they zapped a turkey with one of those orb things? And the trapezee artists were all on mushrooms and suddenly Brent was holding hands with a strange woman? Good times.

Har Mar Superstar: He seems fatter from the balcony.

Tapes n Tapes: Don't recall, much at all.


Wednesday at Swedish Music Hall:

It still smells like cat pee, and $3 for a cup of hot chocolate mix with water is annoying, but what great acoustics!

Laura Gibson: Dynomite! Is it wussy if I say I had shivers several times? I did! I know I've ranted about her before, but she was just as fantastic live as on record. What a freaking voice! And she told little anecdotes in an adorably nervous way, and played that beat up guitar like it was a Stradivarius.

Etienne: When good he's real good; when bad he's real boring. Funnier than expected, tho, especially that song about the Brain that's a Bro.

Josh Ritter: I thought he was very talented and very un-San Francisco in that he didn't hide behind irony or floppy hair. But I'm not so into poetic songwriters who turn great phrases that mean nothing to me and maybe everything to him or maybe nothing to him but a pretty phrase. When he did a John Prine song, I thought, 'Yeah, that's the kind of songwriter I like.'


Tonight, maybe some NP happy hour action, but then off to Rickshaw for Club Loaded with German DJs and one of the dudes from Junior Senior. And tomorrow: the Spinto Band! Oh Mandy.

If you can't tell, I got a new computer with one of those cameras where you can distort the view. Chris came over and we tried it out. Here he looks like one of those knights that go "nih!" or a villian from Flash Gordon.

Tales of blargy blee

Recently I was interviewing the guys in Scissors For Lefty, and I learned that the bassist and drummer's mother used to be a pop star -- in Borneo. In fact, when they go back to visit they still hear her played on the radio. When I asked if she still sang, the drummer said, "No, in Borneo, being a pop star is something you do until you're married."

I thought about that quote while listening to the Hot Toddies play the Rickshaw tonight. They're four cute young girls from Oakland and they sing salacious songs about Swedish boys' bare asses and getting horny in Seattle. (They made me feel a little like a dirty old man when I told them I liked their songs, which is good I guess, because I am older and it'd be weird if I didn't feel a little strange telling a much younger woman that I liked her flirty songs. Oh god, my feminist mom would be so proud.) But anyway, I couldn't help wondering if they'd give up their music when they settled into jobs and families. Or if they'd grow tired of subsisting on bean burritos and No Doze and move to Ukiah or Des Moines to get an advanced degree in biochemistry. And years later, would they ever get played on the radio in Borneo? Probably not.

This getting older thing is weird. How exactly do you age gracefully? In the words of Captain Fatass, "What's the use of parking lots/ if you ain't makin' out and smokin' pot?" There was an article in the Chronicle recently about a woman turning 40 and hating it, about how she had always thought women who dyed their hair and wore trendy clothes were hideous caricatures. But now that's she older, she understands the need to try to maintain your youth, no matter how.

I think I know why I'm having these thoughts. Every year around my birthday, I get moody and bonkers. Or thoughtful and melancholy. Or manic and wild. And then, usually right after my birthday, I'm back to normal. I'm not sure what it will be this year, but I can feel it coming on, something bubbling up below the surface. It might help if I could figure out what to do for my actual birthday, which is less than a month away now. Can't decide on a day or a theme or a venue. Next year will be a big one, and there's plans afoot for a trip to Mexico. But this year is smaller, more contained. Maybe some bowling. Or dancing. Or eating.

Right now, I'm staving off the Blue Meanies by reading Tales of Blarg #9. It's a long-running local zine by Janelle Hessig, and it's hella funny. Lots of comics about being a crusty (there's a hilarious punk vs. hipsters strip) and getting older (in her case 30ish), having your hormones rage like never before (all my female friends say this is true) and enjoying vices (like biting your toenails or peeing in weird places). Besides all the poo and dick jokes, there's a surprisingly tender comic about dealing with depression, in which she suggests, "The seemingly endless shit tunnel out of Shawshank doesn't really go on forever. Keep in mind that Frida Kahlo didn't get to painting until she got rooked by that trolley, and the Ramones wouldn't be the Ramones if Joey wasn't crazy. People have come back from worse things and so will you."

Words to grow old by?

Take it off, way off

So, because today was Valentine's Day and I was already in the city for the Rickshaw's weekly booking meeting and then had to work the underwear party that night (more on that later), I decided to see a movie. Not just any movie, but the ultimate anti-Valentine's Day movie.

It was called Flannel Pajamas, and I knew the minute that I saw the preview that it was a film for me. Two characters meet, fall for each other, get married, and watch their relationship slowly break apart, with lots of talking and sexing. It sounded like a French film, but without all the subtitles and croissants. And it starred the slimy brother-in-law from Weeds (Justin Kirk) and the adorably freckled gal from Tully (Julianne Nicholson). What's not to love?


Well, I was almost dissuaded by the Onion's review. Boy, did they hate it. "Opaque acting, excruciating dialogue, and flat, affectless direction certainly don't help, but even in brilliant hands, Flannel Pajamas would still be a movie about two horrible, unsympathetic people doing dreadful things to each other, and learning nothing in the process." Ouch.

But I went anyway, partially spurred on by Mick Lasalle's Chronicle review (which I have to say may be the first one that I've ever agreed with). And you know I really liked it. Sure, the film isn't perfect and the characters are far from perfect, but, hell, that's life. Lots of people have a hard time in relationships, because relationships can be next to impossible (oh wait, am I projecting here? And why do we keep trying them? Because they're also kind of awesome).

I have this theory. I know, I know, I always have a theory. But here it is: The two main characters in Flannel Pajamas are hard to like because people within relationships are harder to watch. If you saw a film about these two people living outside of their relationship, I bet you would like them more. It's like when a couple you thought were perfect for each other end up breaking up -- you can never know what's really going on inside their heads and behind their closed doors. The nicest people may be bitch-slapping the hell out of each other when you're not around.

Anyway, I recommend the film if you like watching messed up people try to figure themselves out for a couple hours. It just felt really real.

Of course, then I went to the Shaw and watched 22-year-olds dance around in their underwear at the Club Neon pantie party. That felt way less real. Especially when the staff joined in.

Three kinds of fog

So the 16th Three Kinds of Stupid party was Saturday night at Rickshaw Stop. The 16th one! Remember when it was held in my living room? Remember how we used to know everyone there? Remember how we blew up Brent's receiver right after the beer ran out, and 200 angry strangers nearly hung us from the tire swing in Victoria's loft? No? Well, that was years ago.

Now we have a fog machine.


So that's why these photos are a bit bleary, I swear. I have to say that I'm fully pro-fog machine at this point. You get on that stage with the DJ set up hooked to the ceiling and rocking gently and girls coming up and asking to DJ in the middle of a set and the fog is rolling in and the lights are spinning around, and you just feel like a rock star. For a minute.

And yes, that is Mr. Mostly Meat in the far left-hand corner. He doesn't look real happy with whatever we're playing. Must've been the Quiet Riot. Oops, sorry, Meat!

Here's DJ BAS talking to Kristina and Kathleen, right after Malsy got scary zombie eyes and K-D grew talons for fingers. At least that's what it looks like to me. They're lovely ladies, don't piss them off or they'll flip you upside down.


I didn't get any photos of Trackademicks, although Brent supposedly has more that I can put up later. But you do get to see the latest trend in party mania: sex on the dance floor while your partner is upside down.


Probably my favorite attendee was the guy who decided to turn the torrential downpours into his own personal style, waving his open umbrella in the air like he just didn't care while onstage. You can see that he finally shed it in this pic (you can also see a woman doing the Monster Mash).


Sixteen parties! This was the first ever where we didn't have CDs for people. Instead, we made a podcast and placed it here. You can listen to us make fun of each other for picking certain songs. We also ask some really important questions, like "Do people take baths in Sweden?"

Bringing camel back

I never did put up photos of my holiday trip, so here you go. I'll start with New Year's Eve in Providence. A bunch of us came all the way across the country to stay at Rolf and Michele's house for a few days.

We played lots of games, as usual, including Dance Dance Revolution (which I really don't like as much as everyone else, it's just a little odd watching people play a game instead of playing one with them). Eric reigned supreme as always, even with the added difficulty of wearing the fuzzy-eared hat (this reminds me of that Kurt Vonnegut story in which the strongest, most beautiful people have to lug around dumbbells and uglifying masks).


We also tried out the Wii box or whatever it's called. It's a remote controlled video game that lets you play golf and tennis and monkey games. Here, Michele and Victoria are beating the crap out of each other at boxing.


This game we like to call "Make the Pineapple Empty." It was played many times.


This eventually led to a recreation of the Lipstick Debacle of 2002, in which Victoria and Kristina applying lipstick to everyone's faces. After a while, we started to look like refugees from a chicken pox hospice.


I avoided it for a while, but then was tackled and pockmarked. It's no wonder no one wanted to make out with me.


At several points, the pipes backed up and sewage started overflowing into the basement. It looked like we wouldn't be able to use the toilets at all on NYE, so Vic made the ladies a port-a-potty for the garage. (Luckily, the Rotorooter dude fixed everything right before the other guests arrived.)


Around midnight, we gathered for the dropping of the ball, which had been crafted by Brent and Rolf out of plastic champagne glasses. Inside, there were colored lights and a boombox, which played the theme from Chariots of Fire. (Soon after, Eric D busted out some Diet Coke and Mentos, but somehow I didn't capture the majesty of the explosion.)


Then we danced to Stereo Total, Kenny Loggins, and Fatboy Slim, just like old times. Around 4:30, people collapsed on the floor and listened to Belle & Sebastian.


The only thing that could've made it better is if we'd gotten to ride around on a bike shaped like a camel. Oh well, dare to dream.