38 posts tagged “san francisco”
There're a group of marketing people behaving like protesters under my office window. They're marching and chanting to promote juice. They've been doing it for hours and it's making me grumpy. No more will I buy that brand of juice. It's all Odwalla for me from now on, evilly marketed Other Juice. grrr!
Last night, Ben and I saw Richard Cheese at the Red Devil Lounge on Polk. (Supervisor Chris Daly was leaving from the early show when we arrived.) This meant that I spent a couple hours surrounded by a bar crowd. They were in various stages of inebriation, laughing aloud at RC's lounge cover schtick, and ironically grabbing his ass when he walked around among the audience. This is probably about the same crowd that bar gets every night. Vanilla Ice will be playing there soon and I'm sure there will be many people ironically 'enjoying' his performance as well.
The thing is, Richard Cheese and his band are good at what they do. They can play. He can sing. His asshole stage persona (I don't want to know whether that's his true personality) wore on me a bit but was amusing. And Ben and I like to dance. And they were certainly playing dance-able music. There wasn't any room to dance among the sold-out crowd, though. And most everyone else wasn't even moving, except to go back to the bar for more drinks. So depressing.
Irony doesn't interest me quite as much as it used to. It's too simple and crass. Life if far more interesting than an 'ironic' lifestyle. I'd much rather sincerely declare my opinions than hide behind irony the way many, many people seem to. It looks cowardly to me to never admit to truly liking anything. If everything you like you only like ironically, then no one can fault you for your personal taste, which is unlikely anyway as such people are tasteless. It is quite cowardly to not even admit to having an opinion on your entertainment and fashion and whatnot, particularly as so many people base a large part of the identity on their clothes and favorite music and tv shows and movies and whatnot.
Such an unpleasant venue and crowd. Ben is amusing enough to have made up for it, though.
It's only May and already a local politician is calling to spam my voicemail. That creep.
My new SF city guide book arrived today and I'm having far too much fun with it. I really need to get to bed.
[OMG, Lindsay Lohan looks so doped up and spacey in the banner ad next to my blogging entry box. Yikes!]
Anyways, it's my new favorite book. I look forward to filling it up with my favorite city. The plan is mostly to loan it to visiting friends and family and make sure they give it back before leaving. It'll probly be a bit easier than covering a map with post-its every time someone comes to visit. Also: Filling a blank book is fun!
Persimmon falafels are bland.
FYI: Through July 1, redcrossshop.org is giving a 20% discount with promo code "PBA". The sale is also going on at their analog store in SF at 85 Second Street.
The GavinWatch / League of Pissed Off Voters party has been re-scheduled to next Thursday, March 29. I can go! wooo!
I'm coming up on my second anniversary at my job. I didn't think I'd survive a month in the city, but it's been about 2.5 years now. My boss took me to lunch at Scala's. I got wild boar meatballs and pear pizza. Both were tasty, but the pizza was the best! Grilled pear slices (so they were a bit caramelized); some moldy, crumbly cheese; and balsamic vinegar. mmmm! I ate half at lunch and the other half as an afternoon snack. Being pizza, it was good fresh and hot AND cool and hardened.
Okay, there's this Hilary Duff ad next to my blogging frame. It's rather distracting. She's starting to look less roundly cute and more angularly pretty. And her awkward pose lets me see down her dress just a bit. I don't need to see that little crescent of cleavage. Even if I liked staring at boobies, that's not really enough to get excited over. What's wrong with these people?
Anyways, since David and I went to that comedy show Sunday night, I had to tape the new cartoons on Fox that night. I forgot to check the tape speed before recording, so I only got about three minutes of Family Guy, but I know they'll re-run that some day. I was most excited to finally see a new King of the Hill! Someone mentioned that last season may have been the final one and I was terribly disappointed. Now it's back! Yay! Wooooo!!!1!!!!
This may be the final season, but I'm a bit more prepared for it now. I mean, the end of last season was Tom Petty's Lucky character marrying LuAnn. I was so happy at the prospect of seeing more of Lucky in new episodes. Then to be told that that wouldn't happen because there would be no new episodes . . . it's almost too much to be borne, as far as tv is concerned.
The new King of the Hill was lovely, though. I love every character on that show. Even the annoying people aren't awful; they're just like real annoying people whom I deal with enough to almost understand a little. Peggy's main plot was perfect all the way through, and Bobby's joke book gags were wonderful -- life-affirming, even.
Thank you, Fox, for new King of the Hill!
I also got to see a new Everybody Hates Chris last night. I liked Sunday's egg baby better (mostly due to Julius' baby name, Junebug), but the hall monitor ep is completely funny. It even ended hilariously, with the mirrored bitching of Rochelle's co-worker. Ha!
David won tickets to a comedy show from sfist. It was the closing concert of Sketchfest '07. Bruce McCulloch headlined, with Craig Northey and special guest Scott Thompson. Two 'kids in the hall'! What fun.
Also, some guy called Dragon Boy Suede (hey! I started reading a book about dragons today!) who was pretty damn funny, too. I'm not entirely sure how much of his schtick was actual technical difficulties and filler, but he did make me laugh repeatedly. I think I would've laughed more often at his jokes if I hadn't seen the punchline coming. Things are funnier when they're unexpected.
I really liked Hard n Phirm best, tho. I'd seen Chris Hardwick before at the Hollywood Improv in, like, 2003 or 2004. Some time before I moved to SF. That dinosaur song is still v. catchy and, sadly, topical. le sigh. I bought their CD after the show and learned that they're Rodeohead (country western-style Radiohead). Not that I'd ever actually heard Rodeohead before, but I'd heard of them, and that counts for everything. The only thing about HnP that disappointed me was that a song of theirs I'd never heard before and really really like isn't on their CD. oh well. I guess El Corazon will have to do for now.
Dreamgirls
My Mom and I saw this over my holiday break. Jennifer Hudson is completely amazing and made me cry, she performs so well. The whole cast was good, but it's Ms. Hudson's movie. They even had Hinton Battle, who was the villain in the Buffy musical! I bought the soundtrack just for Ms. Hudson's tracks, but the rest of it is good, too. At last, something good has come of that American Idol show.
Children of Men
Cameron went with me to see this New Year's day at the new Bloomingdale's shopping center downtown. This movie made me cry, too. Kevin is right that 'all the good stuff was in the trailer', but that's how movies always are. The plot still managed to surprise me in a few places and the whole thing was well made and the cast was great. A good film, even with the depressing content.
Pan's Labyrinth
I saw this with David (and a man resting a fedora on his knee sitting next to me) at the newly-Sundanced Kabuki. I hadn't been there since the change in ownership. This came very close to making me cry a few times. It's beautiful and scary and icky and gory and uplifting and enthralling. Highly recommended if you can handle scary suspense and bloody violence.
The next new movie I want to see is something with Jennifer Garner and Kevin Smith, just cuz I like watching those people. I don't expect it'll be great, but I need another movie theatre fix and the mid-Feb. release of that Drew Barrymore / Hugh Grant RomCom is too far away.
