Nothing Ever Happens

In the wake of this amusing if somewhat stilted poll, we got to thinking, what's the point of going to a bar anyway? You can drink at home for way cheaper, and one's chances at the ripe age of 36 of "getting lucky" are both slim and slightly depressing, so why bother? An ode to San Francisco's lamest bars.



Lucky 13 - Purports to be punk rock with their sub-Zeitgeist tough love routine, but everyone is ugly and the patio stinks. Exacerbated by the central location, as it's often the most convenient place for everyone to have a boring time.

Dalva - Sure, there's lots of "crazy" stuff going on out front, but inside is a straight snooze. Attention DJs - everyone has heard "Guns of Brixton" enough times to last four lifetimes.

Gold Cane - Upper Haight faux dive scores points for cheap drinks, loses points for the instant malaise that sets in when you get a seat and realize this bar blows. I once made out with someone I met here. It was boring.



Chug Pub - Formerly the deadest Irish bar of all time, now populated with conspicuously chesty Asian girls, the men who love them, and their crazy "chug tower." Sounds like a recipe for wild times, but instead it's a recipe for a Blockbuster night.

Absinthe - Not a bar proper, just a really annoying restaurant.

Hotel Utah - Smells like pee, weirdest layout ever, terrible live music, mentally deficient bartenders (except that lady who used to bartend at the Drift, she's super cool). On the plus side, I'm not mad at their turkey burger.

The Clift - The Clift is like ah fuck it, just don't ever go.

Ha-Ra - People love this place but check it out, just because it's old doesn't make it good. Have you been to Clooney's? What's appealing about drinking with homeless people? There are better ways to feel superior to others, like winning push-up contests.



Elixir - Tough call because it's my local and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for something happening other than a "quiet night." Points for nice drinks, excellent service and better music than the shitty Ecast machine would connote. Elixir, I really want to make this work, but I need you to step it up. Call me.

Monk's Kettle - Over it. The weird homeless zombie attack kind of ruined it for me. Plus there's no way that bartender is ever going to even smirk at my hilarious quips.



Beretta - My people love this place because it's all like classy and whatnot but we went once and my friend asked for a cranberry and vodka and they cheerily responded, "OK, we don't have cranberry juice, but I can make you fresh hibiscus juice instead." That sentence is like a metaphor for a loveless marriage.

(brief aside, while I was typing this I went to the office kitchen to get a beer, which my coworker Sarah put in her pants and it emerged sans bottlecap. That's the kind of shit that never happens at any of the above bars)

Bonus Track - Some Bars Where There's Always a Story the Next Day:

Place Pigalle - Way back when (2002) you could always count on something happening at Pigalle, though the driving force for that is now gainfully employed as a personal trainer so you could skip, I guess. Actually, I walked by the other day, it's lame now. Forget I brought it up.

Gold Dust - Tourist bars are always good times, the staff here are aces and you've never seen three guys happier to be playing "Suzie Q" for the tenth time this week.

Thieves Tavern - Whatever during the week but the ladies on the early shift on Sunday keep it extra real and make me think it'd be fun to be a lesbian. Non-stop chuckles on laundry day, there's no knocking it.

500 Club - At first I was like yawn with your punk rock but this is a stand-up joint. I met bartender dude there one time via the aforementioned Pigalle pal and he still hooks it up, like a year later. There are not too many female demographics that respond less favorably to my hilarity than the tattooed ladies of the Five Hundo, but I don't care.



There's tons more but I gotta go, it's Friday.

Cupcakes are Overrated

The editorial staff here at B&P is in Tahoe this weekend sitting in hot tubs and generally losing our shirts, so we've asked our pal Mai to weigh in in our absence. Today's topic came up when in the wake of our MySpace deal getting done, attempts to lay claim to one of the eight fancy cupcakes they sent us nearly came to blows. Mai, a recent arrival on these shores, was perplexed by this American fanfare, and filed the following opinion piece. We've not edited her prose because it highlights her always unique perspective, and we hope for more reports from this intrepid young journalista.

It's been 7 months since I moved from Tokyo to San Francisco, and usually I don't feel like here is a "foreign" place somehow, but I have to point out some stuff that I don't get. It's not about scary Sushi with colorful toppings nor drinking at work on early afternoon on Fridays. One thing that I don't understand, and I've pretended like understanding is, cupcakes. People would know that food in Japan is awesome, and in fact Japan is a country of sticklers SWEETS as well, which is in our language, more like pronounced as SUIIITSU. If you go to any kinds of decent malls' food sections in Tokyo (called Depa-Chika, Department stores' basement), you see all kinds of beautiful cakes, puddings, cookies, chocolates... just awesome enough to look at them, and you feel kind of guilty eating them cause they are so well-decorated. Magazines talk about SWEETS, there are always new trends like what kind of SWEETS are in etc. It's a big thing for sure. If it's somebody's birthday, you get one of these beautiful arts and share the tasty-ness together. I have a friend of mine who went to buy a 5 star chef's big cheese cake and brought that with her bicycle by riding it for 40 minutes. She was serious.

Cup cakes never make me as excited as these. When we got tons of cup cakes recently at work from our client, people talked about it all day long longing for them. For me, it's just a sweet steamed bread with too sweet cream on the top. I wonder what's gonna happen when they experience our SUIIITS.

Welcome to Mali

Very amazing new Amadou & Mariam, who could stand to update their website once in a while. Via, erm, Pitchfork. OK? OK?

Alaska

In between batting my eyelashes at ladies on the Tube last week, I managed to complete the very excellent Michael Chabon book The Yiddish Policeman's Union. I was not a fan of Kavalier & Clay, and downright HATED Wonder Boys (though I made the mistake of seeing the Michael Douglas movie first, which may have clouded my judgement. You can put bifocals on a pig, doesn't make them a professor). I audiobooked The Gentlemen of the Road, which I thought was more enjoyable in premise than in execution, but maybe I need to read the book itself. That's no dis to Andre Braugher, an interesting pick to vocalize a distinctly Semitic novel, but whose talents continue to outstrip his abilities to score only supporting roles of the snooziest variety. So YPU is a snappy little murder mystery, with a What If premise that is less far-fetched than it might sound. And word is that the Coen Brothers are running with the film. Ideas for casting? My brother had better be trying out.

A-La-Ska would be a good name for a ska band.

Whew

See, all that worrying last week, and all we needed was a little bailout from the government and we're totally fine. Now I'm going to go back to blissful eBay spending and a total disregard for my future finances. And I'm pretty sure these pumpkin stocks are going to peak around January.

Why Can't You Set Your Monkey Free?

UPDATE, MORE MONKEY TOMFOOLERY:





So the busy guys from Gorillaz, Tank Girl, Blur, The Good, The Bad & The Queen, Mali Music (not to be confused with this), the awesome new Amadou & Mariam and probably some other stuff, have gone and made a Chinese Opera called Monkey Journey to the West. It was just one of those things they hadn't done yet, I guess. Personally I might have prioritized learning how to water ski or taking yoga over composing a Chinese Opera but hey that's just me. No idea why a Monkey can't keep a shirt on though.

Anyways, it's based on the Chinese story of the Monkey King. You know the one, he's a Monkey who is a king, and he's got a pig friend with a rake and then some other shit happens? Yes, this is the also the premise for Dragonball. The soundtrack is out on the fine label XL Recordings.


Apparently there's a film version with Jet Li but who gives a crap, forget I brought it up.

Intolerance of Lactose

On the airplane last night from Atlanta to SFO, the guy next to me ordered two glasses of milk and some cookies. He was probably 50. And then the older guy on the other side of me (exit row, natch) heard dude order milk and was like, that sounds really good, I'll have milk and cookies too. I had a Heineken myself, because I'm not six years old.

Separated at Birth

When's the last time you saw Curumin and Bridgette Bardot in the same place at the same time? I'm just saying.



BONUS: Yayoi Kusama likes dots

I Could Watch Naked Icelanders All Day Long

I always thought Sigur Ros were either messing with us ("We invented our own Elvin language!") or just pretentious Viking dicks, or both, but I'm not mad at Nordic hippie ladies running through the woods, and this song is a bit more engaging than their usual dirgefest.

Wait, what the hell am I talking about. You know, between the aforementioned Japrocksampler, my own prodigious beardage and this woodland nonsense, one of my friends better shave my head and slap some sense into me before I start a psych band or some shit.

Refusenik Rock

Italians Do It Better

Back at the non-homefront with Little I doing the old You Tube meander, where a harmless excursion into the land of cat bloopers has lead us horribly, horribly astray. Enjoyable for a minute and a half sure, and then a turn for the bizarre in the way that only a homemade Italian gay Jesus parody can be. I like cats.

The Film Orson Welles Made in Heaven

Little I and I were looking for a song that he's been hearing on Texas radio called "Cumbia del Mosquito," and this is what came up on Google. Clearly there's a bizarro dimension somewhere where this is normal, and people who don't fly around on brooms with prosthetic noses and dance the samba in Egypt are the weird ones.

I Slept on Brooklyn, Apparently

Via Mad Decent, my favorite song of 2008 (Ricky Blaze's "Cut Dem Off"), was apparently released at some point in 2007 and no one told me. Not a lot of pictures of dude floating around, so here's one from his busy Myspace page, which (if you can keep it from crashing your computer) features one of the best event promos I've ever heard. Mush mouth fake interviews, vocoders and honky tonk piano, I don't know what the hell is going on, but I am so there. There is a paucity of information about this guy on the interweb, I might have go to the library or ask some Jamaicans or something.