During my three decades of life, I’ve had the chance to do quite a few things wearing a blindfold -- play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, whack a piñata, wait for a lover to find my clitoris – but eating has never been one of them. Until now.
"Waiter, I don't know what's in my soup." AP photo.
I’m sure you’ve heard of this phenomenon: fancy restaurants blindfolding their patrons so they can fully focus on the subtle, complex, upper-middle-class flavors of haute cuisine. Or perhaps you’ve heard of it from dieting gurus, who profess you’ll enjoy your food more, and eat less of it, if you aren’t distracted by stimuli like television, books, or, you know, sight.
Chef Craig Patzer prepares our meals - and probably tries not to laugh at our blindfolded shenanigans.AP Photo.
What I experienced was a version of this phenomenon crossed with the PR machine: a joint event between Jardiniere and Tazo teas where media types were blindfolded to taste entrees and alcohol pairings made with, or inspired by, Tazo blends. And it was rad.
"The rest of you are blindfolded too, right? This isn't some kind of April Fool's joke?"
Enough already, we get it. Go ahead, put the cap back on the Sharpie, and step away from the bus.
That's right, you, the graffitist/frustrated Giants fan who's been going around town doctoring the Giants advertisements on the back of Muni coaches- making the ad copy that initially read: "All Out. All Season," say instead: "All Outs. All Season."
Very funny. Ha, ha. ha. Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum. Actually we'll need a bottle of rum to numb the pain if the Giants get pinned with one more ugly 7-0 shutout.
It's been only a week, but we've seen enough. The Giants lineup is not working. What makes it scarier is that the 1985 Giants, the club that posted the worst record in San Francisco history - 62-100 - had a lineup (featuring Chili Davis, Jeffery Leonard, Bob Brenly) that was considerably better than the current team.
This year, Giants ads have promised a grittier club that hangs together win or lose.
And while, yes, the Giants have two potential pitching aces in Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum and a couple of exciting position players, including the daring and eminently watchable Eugenio Velez, will that be enough to keep an easily distracted fan base from hanging in there?
It won't do the Giants any good to work out any mid-season trades - who would they deal?
But it might not be a bad idea for the Giants to plant a scout in Hollywood.
That's where they might catch a glimpse of the banished Barry Bonds eating breakfast with Larry King or taking in a Tyler Perry movie premiere. Despite batting .276, with 28 homers and 66 RBI last season, no team wanted Bonds this spring.
Bonds is ready, willing and certainly able to play another season - and it should be with San Francisco. What better way for the club to celebrate its 50th Anniversary in San Francisco than by having one of the club's all-time greatest players knocking balls into the bay?
We say bring back San Francisco's favorite surly slugger.
The security guard/construction worker did not like me.
“It’s fucking retarded dude, cause I’m a fuckin’ skater too,” he said. “But I let a couple of you little bastards through the fence last weekend and I lost half my ass for it. So go home. You can’t fucking skate here.” It was a hard thing to hear at 8:30 in the morning on a bright and sunny Tuesday, especially since I’d been dreaming about skating the new park since they started building the damn thing a year ago and I’d just gotten word that it was done. I had gathered up my board and set out my half-cabs the night before in anticipation of a solo morning session and now this asshole construction worker was harshing my mellow. But I wasn’t trying to hear it.
“What’s the big deal man?” I said. “The shit’s finished. I can see it. Can’t you just, like, look the other way and let me fuck around for a minute.” The construction worker’s eyes filled with rage as he stepped closer and grabbed hold of the chain link fence that was separating us, lifting his arm to expose some fresh ink: a prison-issue sketch of a sawed-off shotgun. I was angry about the fence at first, but now I was glad it was there. I did not want to fuck with this dude. “Listen, man.” He said. “I fucking live here [wtf] and nobody’s gonna skate this shit until July fourth. Tell all your punk-ass little friends it’s a fucking no go! I know it’s fucking retarded, but I ain’t losing my job just so you fuckers can skate.”
So there you have it. I know it’s tempting, especially for older skaters like me who don’t want to get arrested in the streets anymore, but unless you want to go toe to toe with the burliest tattooed skater/construction dude on the planet, I suggest you hold off for a while. The park’s finished and it looks pretty sick, but the grand opening isn’t until the fourth of July And. That’s. Fucking. That.
Hours after heart surgery, while still in her bed on the cardiac floor of the hospital, doctors gave Kristen Doyle's mother a hamburger for her first meal. Doyle knew this was common practice. But as a registered and practicing nurse with an interest in nutrition and preventative medicine, she’d always been disgusted that doctors allowed patients to eat fatty, processed foods instead of directing them towards a healthier lifestyle.
In 2004, after a 12-year nursing career, Doyle could no longer stomach the hypocrisy. In search of a way to help people beyond diagnostics and treatment, she enrolled in Bauman College of Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts. The incident with her mother later that year confirmed what she’d suspected: she’d never use her nursing degree for traditional practices again. Now she’s a personal chef for cancer patients, diabetics, and other people with special nutritional needs.
But while the new job she started in 2005 pays the bills, Doyle wasn’t satisfied she was helping enough people. "I'm only reaching a couple of families each week," Doyle said. "If you're paying for a personal chef, you're probably upper or middle class, but this information should be available to everyone."
Doyle’s answer? A healthy, cancer-preventing diet through free weekly cooking and nutrition classes held at the Institute on Aging, UCSF, and most recently, the SOMA Whole Foods.
Guardian photographer and writer Charles Russo sent over these pics of this afternoon's Olympic torch protests and rallies:
Tibetan-born Lobsang Lama (center left) traveled from his home in Portland, Oregon to protest China's human rights violations in Tibet and its hosting of the 2008 Olympics.
Tibetan Tagudh Youndoung engages in debate with a pro-Chinese supporter along the Embarcadero while waiting for the Olympic Torch procession.
After the huge crowds outside the Ferry Building and Justin Herman Plaza realized the Olympic Torch route had changed, the previously cordoned-off Embarcadero became a logjam of confrontations between Tibetan and Chinese supporters.
A pro-China demonstrator seeks to keep a torn Chinese flag aloft after it had been ripped by Tibetan activists.
Jack Kornfield (right with sign) and Ashin Nanikabhivamsa led a huge peace walk of Burmese monks and activists across the Golden Gate Bridge in solidarity with Tibetan protestors.
Intern Ailene Sankur refs the Brunch Battle of the Bay: Mama vs. Mama.
This culinary clash takes place between two cross-bay heavyweights—brunch staples with a maternal instinct to make sure you get your most important meal of the day: the one at noon that takes away the shakes. Oakland’s Mama’s Royal Café is a hipster enclave in the Temescal District while San Francisco’s Mama’s is a bougie North Beach eatery. Both are cash-only neighborhood favorites (I’ve said it before--the less a restaurant wants to convenience you, the better it probably is.) Let the fight begin!
Round 1—The Line
Both Mama’s Royal Café and Mama’s are, apparently, worth waiting for. The wait at Mama’s is known to take over an hour, while I’ve never waited over thirty minutes at Mama’s Royal. Both restaurants operate on the “turn and burn” philosophy: moving people in and out quickly to turn over the tables. At Mama’s Royal, sign up on the clipboard, grab a mug from the pile and pour yourself coffee. Then lounge in the front--with the ironically acid-washed-skinny-jean clad hipsters--smoke a cigarette and wait for someone to yell your name. At Mama’s, you wait in a line sans coffee--unless someone holds your place in line so you can run to Caffe Roma two blocks away--sandwiched between an ex-Cal frat boy/junior assistant something or other talking on his cell about how wasted he was last night and two impossibly thin and good-looking parents with impossibly “precocious” children. Either way, bring the paper!
Winner: Mama’s Royal Café. Come on, Mom would never make anyone wait outside without offering them a hot beverage.
Between the two of them, Brian McGonigle and Paolo Mancini have more than 30 years of experience in the wine industry. They’ve seen their share of ways to taste, pair, collect, catalog and, of course, imbibe. They’ve seen the division between the rarefied world of the “serious” wine collector and the intimidating nature of crossing that schism as a new wine collector.
And they wanted to close that schism, shift the paradigm of polarized wine culture: you either collect hundred-dollar bottles of wine or only buy what’s on sale at Trader Joe’s. Hence their joint project: the San Francisco Wine Center (SFWC), a wine storage facility with two rooms to be used for wine events and classes, as well as for members to just hang out and crack open a bottle.
Wine storage facilities are, typically, for the more serious collector, the ones that Brian McGonigle, co-owner of the SFWC, says “collect only expensive cult Napa Cab, first growth Bordeaux and Grand Cru Burgundy.” Facilities are devoted to the idea of wine as investment—a temperature and humidity controlled place to drop off wines to ensure that they’ll develop correctly. The clinical sterility is reminiscent of a laboratory, while the emphasis on wine as horded possession is evocative of a bank, a place to drop off an asset and watch it grow, untouched.
McGonigle and Mancini want the SFWC to be more wine community than wine depository. McGonigle says, “We want members to think of it as a private wine club that they can enjoy regularly, attending events or just stopping in to see what new wines we have open at the end of the day. When we looked at the existing providers of storage services we realized that no one was offering these types of associated services and amenities and it just seemed natural to us.”
Who needs "Carrie" when you've got Mary? Those fabulously scandalous Sisters of Perpetual indulgence are at it again, hosting a Queer Prom this Sat/19 to raise funds to combat the proposed LBAM aerial spraying. Theme: Leather and Lace. Location: San Francisco's wackiest techno leather "ball" room (get it?), the Powerhouse. Chaperones: Porn stars. Dress code: No one will remain clothed for long, sweetie, it's a Queer Prom duh.
Hell yes the punch will be spiked
Queer Prom: Leather and Lace
Sat/19, 9pm-Midnite, $5-15 sliding scale
The Powerhouse
1347 Folsom www.powerhouse-sf.com
With his shaggy blue-black hair, boyish good looks and slight frame, the Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum looks as if he stepped out of an audition for American Idol. He could also pass as a record store clerk, a college student or a wine steward.
The point is, Lincecum (he's listed at 5-foot-11, 170 pounds, but appears to be smaller) looks as if he could do anything for a living except play major league baseball.
But not only does the Bellevue, Washington native draw a nice check every two weeks from the Giants, the 23-year-old has quickly become the ace of San Francisco's staff and arguably most exciting hurler to matriculate through the orange & black's farm system since John "The Count" Monetfusco back in 1975.
Some in the media have nicknamed Lincecum, "The Franchise." We prefer (with apologies to Rick James) "Super Freak."
How else would you describe an average-sized dude expelling hardballs as if there's a howitzer attached to his right side? Whether it's from the torque generated from his "windmill" delivery or just unexplainable natural ability, Lincecum (lin-suh-COME) brings his pitches with markedly abnormal velocity.
That power pitching led to 150 strikeouts in 2007 over just 90 innings - tops among all rookies. Two seasons after he was selected as the 10th overall selection in the 2006 amateur draft, Lincecum has already lapped every player selected ahead of him, including No. 1 pick Luke Hochevar of Kansas City, who was bombed last weekend in Oakland, a day after Lincecum tossed seven shutout frames in a 3-0 Giants win at St. Louis.
With the victory, Lincecum solidified his position as the Giants "stopper," i.e. the pitcher you turn when you absolutely need a win or to halt a losing streak.
Lincecum has become even more of a complete pitcher this season. In 2007, the righty authored a 7-5 record and 4.00 ERA with basically a dazzling fastball and an overhand curve. This season he's introduced a darting slider and criminal change-up to his repertoire.
All that makes the recent news that the Giants brain-trust is seriously contemplating a move to an unheard of six-man starting rotation all that more disheartening.
Two years ago, I bought expensive tickets to the 2006 Exotic Erotic Expo because the flyer for the event advertised a live appearance by Violet Blue, who is one of my favorite sex writers, and who I’d wanted to meet for a very long time. I never got to meet her though. Turns out there’s a porn star also named Violet Blue, and she was the one appearing. So, instead of schmoozing with a journalist, I spent my time at the expo drinking cheap beer and stalking a porn star. Snore.
The real Violet Blue
Naturally Violet Blue the writer is pretty pissed about this kind of mix up -- she claims the fake Violet Blue is using her name to attract a bigger following -- and the name feud has finally made it to the courthouse. (Full disclosure: I’m a witness for the writer’s side – my story was a direct catalyst for the suit.) It seems after our missed encounter, the real Violet Blue decided she’d had enough and started looking into patent laws and ways to challenge the star of Who Violet Blew, Planet of the Gapes 4, and Beauty and the Bitch. The initial court proceedings went down last October, but the case is far from over. The porn star has been quite successful under her moniker – winning multiple AVN awards, getting countless roles, and even hosting her own radio show -- and she doesn’t want to give the name up (she “officially” changed it to Violetta Blue, but continues to use the original name whenever she appears at events or stars in videos).
The other Violet Blue (not posing with the author!)
What’s the big deal, you ask? Both of these women are involved in porn aren’t they?
Well, yes and no. The writer, whose real name actually is Violet Blue, has dedicated her entire life to showing the good side of the sex industry, whereas the other Violet Blue is just a plain ol’ sex worker. In her award winning blog, www.tinynibbles.com, and in her books, the real Violet Blue tries to show that an obsession with sex is totally natural and that “sex people” can be funny, smart, technologically advanced, artistically inclined, and full of unique ideas. She tours the world holding sex seminars on college campuses and even makes appearances on popular television shows to champion her conviction that any sex is good sex as long as it’s safe and consensual. She also believes that, contrary to popular belief, women like to watch pornography as much as men. Good deal.
But the issue isn’t about whether or not Violet Blue the imposter should be doing porn or whether or not she’s a good role model. The issue is that the real Violet Blue is constantly being mistaken for a so-so porn star and it’s fucking with her career. She can’t even win national awards, like Forbes’ Top 25 Web Celebs of 2007 (in which she won 25th place as the best pornstar/blogger) or get invited to conventions without someone thinking she does double anal for extra cash when her book sales are down. Not that that’s bad in itself, but come on. I’d be pretty pissed as well. Especially about Planet of the Gapes 4.
On April 16, members of the thirteen immigrant community organizations that make up the San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network (SFILEN) met at City Hall today in an effort to advocate for more community resources for immigrants. Immigrants represent 40 percent of San Francisco's population and the event was an opportunity for members of SFILEN to call attention to the need for more legal and educational programs, and to speak with City Supervisors as a continuation of making San Francisco a true sanctuary for all immigrants.
Members of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) on the steps of City Hall, supporting San Francisco's Immigrant Family Day.
Supporters gathered at City Hall for Immigrant Family Day, asking City leaders to continue supporting immigrant programs for their communities.
Members of the community came out to hold signs and show their support to keep San Francisco true sanctuary for immigrant communities.
Members of Mujeres Unidas at San Francisco's Immigrant Family Day.
Ben Younes Ouanane (left), an immigrant from Morocco, spoke about the help he has received from the African Immigrant and Refugee Resource Center (AIRRC), one of the cities many immigrant rights organizations involved in the Immigrant Family Day. Joe Sciarrillo, a paralegal at AIRRC, translated from French to English for Mr. Ouanane.
It's time to raise a knife and spoon to end AIDS, as restaurants throughout our fair berg are flooded on the evening of Thurs/24 for Dining Out For Life -- a benefit in which 25 percent of all food and drink sales will be donated to StopAIDS. Oh yes, there will be drag queens. Perhaps even breaded and baked. Below are three choice happenings hosted by thirsty trannies aching to shove their meat in your mouth. Reservations strongly encouraged (Click here for 100 more participating restaurants!)
The Crispy Classic
Miss Juanita More dishes out her famous fried chicken with honey goo (plus carrot cake dessert!) at Mars Bar. her scrumptious (and possibly underaged) More Boys will wait on you, hostess Candi Gurl will look stunned but glamorous, and DJ James Glass --= the hottest straight boy into underground disco -- will help it all go down easy.
The Skewered Newbie
No one skewers the reigning queens of the scene like Monistat -- so appropriately she'll be hostessing, along with Castro Shawn, at the Castro's deliciously healthy skewered meat wonderland Asqew Grill. Don't forget to shishkabob your hair, lady.
Just a Plain Ol' Saucy Mess
The fiendishly fingerlickin' Felicia Fellatio -- pictured here with cutie leatherboy cohost Jorge -- will hold glutton court at Memphis Minnie's BBQ in Lower Haight. (Did you know that Memphis Minnie's features a sake tasting menu with it's plethora of roasted flesh? Well now you know!)
The EcoCenter at Heron's Head Park groundbreaking ceremony was held yesterday, April 22, in San Francisco's Bayview/Hunters Point. The EcoCenter will be the first LEED-certified building in the southern part of the city and first building to run completely off the grid. Heron's Head Park was opened in 1999 to provide an open and natural space for the communities nearby, and since then more than 1,200 volunteers have helped restore the area by removing invasive plants and trash and replacing them with native plants. With the continuous support and effort of the Port of San Francisco and Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ), the EcoCenter will finally open, giving students the opportunity to learn in hands-on programs about issues such as clean air and water, renewable energy, healthy foods and open space restoration. (To get involved in the Heron's Head Park project, contact Laurie Schoeman at: lcprojectmanager@lejyouth.org) Here's some pics from the event.
The entrance to Heron's Head Park with the old PG&E plant in the background that's in the process of being demolished.
Goats are used in Heron's Head Park as a natural method of weed control.
Volunteers gather at Heron's Head Park before the beginning of the groundbreaking ceremony.
A Scrophularia californica, or Bee Plant, is just one example of the many native California plants that will be re-introduced into Heron's Head Park.
Beautiful Heron's Head Park.
Milton Reynolds, a member of Literacy for Environmental Justice, started the day's events at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new EcoCenter at Heron's Head Park.
A couple Thursdays ago I went on the Johnnie Walker Journey - a traveling tasting show of Johnnie Walker's five blended whiskies. Only now can I process this odd event.
First a quick note, I am often fairly cynical about these tasting events -- whether they are put on by a liquor company, or whether they’re part of festivals that bring together a number of companies. I can think of a few at bars that have been joyous events (see: those held at Elixir), but often they take place in sterile rooms, and completely reduce the enjoyment of a liquor.
While The Johnnie Walker Journey, which took place at Fort Mason, fell into the latter category, it was so over the top it may have shot the moon. How do you turn the tasting of five liquors into something special? You build it into an overhyped multimedia event that is far bigger than it deserves to be.
The evening started off pretty lackluster. First we waited in line to "donate" five dollars to charity -- which one they didn't say. Then we waited in line to fill out a survey with one of the Johnny Walker Girls (much more wholesome than you’re picturing).
After a half hour, an announcer intoned that the time for the tasting was now. Again we waited in line, this time like we were entering Universal Studios. The email I had gotten about the event described it as a multimedia event. When I asked Travis Rexroad, the marketing guy who was helping organize this, what could be multimedia about a tasting event, he wasn't much help with details.
After herding us together once again, we filed into the back room. Four groups of five rows of long white, soft benches faced the center, turning the normally dingy Fort Mason into something resembling a futuristic gathering of the elders.
Then came out the emcee. This guy, who looked like Richard Karn, had the job of stretching out the drinking of a total of 2 oz of liquor over an hour and a half. But his first job was to tell us where the exits were in case, in the middle of the show, we had to use the bathroom.
Carbon dioxide, deforestation, and nitrous oxide all shoulder their share of the blame for Global Warming. But what about Lee Elia?
Now, you won't find Elia's name mentioned in any Al Gore lecture. He's not a greedy corporate bigwig, an eco terrorist, or a clueless oil tanker captain - just a curmudgeonly baseball lifer.
But 25 years ago this week, during a highly unsuccessful two-season stint managing the Chicago Cubs, Elia emitted the most extreme, paint-peeling meltdowns in the history of sports.
When he was done blasting away at Cubs fans with an obscenity-laced rant that included a jaw-dropping 36 F-bombs over the first three minutes, Elia surely had released enough green house gasses to liquidate massive mountain glaciers and multiply the thermal expansion of upper ocean layers from Pacifica to Antarctica. .
A quarter century later, Elia's diatribe still ranks as the No. 1 outburst in the history of sports - eclipsing Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy (I'm a man! I'm 40!"); Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Mora (Playoffs?! Are you kidding?! Playoffs?!) and any number of profanity laced diatribes by former Dodgers skipper Tommy Lasorda.
The Legend of Elia rant has grown so much over the years, that every April 29, sports radio broadcasters from coast- to- coast gather for a moment to celebrate "Lee Elia Day" - popping multi-generational copies of the tirade into their Monrantz tape decks and laughing hysterically.
After dealing with mounds of monotone sports clichés on a daily basis, Elia's rant allows beleaguered sound bite gathers a moment to smile. Obviously, because of Elia's unrestrained profanity, only carefully edited versions of Elia's adult content diatribe have ever made it to the public airwaves.
Now, thanks to the internet of course, Elia's diatribe can be heard in all its profane glory.
The hapless Cubs were off to a typical dreary start to their '83, settling into last place in the National League East place after a 4-3 loss to the Dodgers at Wrigley Field that afternoon.
As the Cubs exited the field and the 9,391 fans in attendance filed out of the grand stand, a couple of jerks pelted Chicago's Keith Moreland and Larry Bowa with stadium trash.
"About 85 percent of the (f-ing) world is working," Elia growled into the microphone of Chicago radio man Les Grobstein, one of a half dozen reporters to witness the rant first hand. "The other 15 come out here."
He was far from finished.
Moments later, Elia's season-long slow burn escalated into an inferno. He lit not only into the debris flinging morons, but each and every Cubs fan that had ever skipped school or work to take in a mid-week day game at the "Friendly Confines."
SFBG:Hey, aren’t you the guy who hangs out on the corner of Market and Sixth with the sign? I pass you everyday on my way to work. What’s your name? Frank Chu: Yeah, I protest down there. My name is Frank Chu and I was published by the San Jose Mercury news with Dan Greene and also with Tom Brokaw on NBC Nightly News. I was also filmed by some populations of The 12 Galaxies. They are guilty with Bush and Cheney, which gives you a sense of the millions of populations I’m dealing with.
SFBG:Nice! So do you hang out here at The 12 Galaxies a lot? Chu: Yes. I was a TV Star and a movie star, so they named the nightclub after me. They call it 12 Galaxies and they give me complimentary drinks and free admission to events. So I didn’t have to pay when I met Mark Hamill from Star Wars. I also met Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and Dennis Kucinich. I told them about my campaign.
SFBG:What’s your campaign about? Chu: Well, it’s about rocket societies, flying saucers, and space vacations.
SFBG:I don’t get it. How does that all tie in together? Chu: It’s about the 12 Galaxies that are friends with the White House who are guilty of attempts of murdering the other thousand galaxies.
SFBG:Oh, I see. Your campaign is about aliens and stuff then. I always thought you were one of those God people. Chu: Well, the 12 Galaxies are advanced populations. They are more advanced than humans and they are friends with The Bush and The Clinton.
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