Oh laminitis-infected, fracture-healed, Kentucky-Derby winning obsession of a nation — euthanized this weekend.
Not a giraffe
Barbaro, we waited with baited breath for your recovery — it could be argued that the footage of your leg snapping like a matchstick at last year’s Preakness was the first official “YouTube moment” that captured the attention of the non-Colbert Nation and that your recovery was a brief placebo for out angst over Iraq. But mostly you were just cute. We’ll miss you.
Guardian A&E intern Elaine Santore discovered MillionaireMarch.com, and nothing has quite been the same since; here’s her take on the online dating site:
Not long ago, a good friend alerted me that we were behind on our MRS degrees. In a panic, I grabbed my BlackBerry and clicked on the “Tasks” icon. Sure enough: below reminders to “Wash my face” and “Do NOT text/IM/call/MySpace that guy” was “Get MRS degree.”
At 24, I feared I’d missed the trophy wife boat forever. Thankfully, the good folks at Jane magazine spotlight online dating in its Feb. issue, and mentioned MillionaireMatch.com. Millionaire Match’s homepage poses the all-important questions:
“Does your economic success make it difficult for you to meet that special someone?” Um, duh. Non-intern men in SF are very intimidated by my success. So much so that I had to move back into my parents’ house just to feel at their level.
“Why try other dating websites that can only claim to get results, when you can meet tens of thousands of successful and quality singles and friends right here!” Awesome! I need friends.
Millionaire Match defines a millionaire as anybody who makes over $150,000 a year. Non-millionaires and celebrities (no income bracket provided) are also invited. The site allows you to create a free profile, but offers a gold membership for $19.95 a month. (That’s half the membership fee for Parisexposed.com. Hot.)
After a couple hours of perusing the site, I found that some members appeared to be actual millionaires. A fair share of men my age, however, looked like they were in search of a sugar mama. No shame in the game, boys. Holla for the dollar!
Well, flip-and-skip realtor Greg Bronstein’s done it again — but this time he’s fucked with the wrong peeps. I got word on Sunday that he’d sold the Transfer — out from under the noses of the staff. Nightlife mogul wannabe Bronstein and his horridly named organization, Flavors You Crave (gag), also owns Lime, Bar on Castro, Crave, Jet and probably a million other places as well — and he’s known for selling things at a moments notice. Sell those! Close those! He sold Castro restaurant Blue, Sneaky Tiki shut down within moments of opening, and Bronstein came really close to pissing me off when he bought and sold Hush Hush in turnaround fashion, effectively closing it down for good. But the Transfer, under fab and canny manager Shawn Vergara, has become ground zero for nonpretentious party people in just one year — and was going strong. Most of the party promoters working with the Transfer have said they’ll jump ship with out Vergara at the helm. No word what the new owners intend yet, but we’ll be following the story closely, marke my words …
Better days?
Oh no! NBC just announced that everybody’s favorite warlock-drownin’, killer bee-stingin’, zombie-stranglin’, gay-monkin’ soap, Passions — is cancelled!
Passionate no moooooore ….
While of course we were too busy to watch it on a regular basis, and it had grown tired recently, when it was in its prime we were positively glued: It stirred up primal memories of General Hospital during it’s whole “ice island” 1979 phase. Camp with a scooper. The real scary thing is that Passions was cancelled so that the Today Show could expand to four frickin hours!. EEK.
Fabulous intern Cara Cutter weighs in with her take on the un-wavy waifs of the Golden Globes — Marke B.
Star style at Hollywood’s big awards ceremonies tends to swing between old-world Hollywood glam and finely tuned ‘au naturale’. At last year’s Golden Globes the look was fresh, lightly tousled locks complemented by barely-there makeup. Screen sirens, such as Charize Theron, as well as television stars like Felicity Huffman, sported loose and breezy curls. This year the pendulum didn’t quite come full swing back to glam’s sculpted tresses, however there was a definite departure from free-flowing curls.
Charlize: breezy
City Editor and all around thin guy Steven T. Jones weighs in with his experience on the new fad diet of the moment — Master Cleanse!
Mmmm, food really tastes good when you haven’t eaten any for more than a week. What? Not eating for a week? That’s crazy! That’s what I thought when I first heard about the Master Cleanse from friends who had done it: initially I was intrigued by the idea of cleansing my body of toxins using a mixture of fresh lemon juice, grade B maple syrup, and African cayenne pepper; then I was blown away to hear it involved eating no food for 7-10 days.
Alix and Steve with “the bottle.” Pic by Luke Thomas
I’m a huge omnivore, but I have a jealousy-inducing metabolism that keeps me from gaining weight no matter what I eat (It’s true — I’ve seen him in a Utilikilt and not much more — Marke B.). So I wasn’t looking for some crash diet or hippy-dippy nutritional epiphany. Yet the idea percolated in my brain and the more I learned and thought about the concept of fasting, the more I was drawn to try it. My friends who had done it looked great and said they felt even better: happier, more energy, spiritually grounded. So my sweetie, Alix Rosenthal, and I decided to do it starting Jan. 7. And now, as we ease ourselves back onto food, I can attest that they’re right. This is a unique way to test your will, learn about your body, and hit your biological reset button.
This just in from DJ Bus Station John, and anyone who’s enjoyed/suffered the caustic castigations (often racially motivated) and 86-baiting bar antics of local legend and chanteuse Bambi Lake — goddess love her!! —
will chuckle mightily. Unless this is her secret identity? After the jump ….
I’ve been at the Guardian awhile — it’ll be eight years next month, in fact. I started as a fresh-faced, eager intern, and since 1999 I’ve met many other fresh-faced, eager interns, intent on careers in media or academics or giraffe-tending (for real! If you’re out there, intern-who-reviewed-movies-but-was-also-a-zookeeper, email me and let me know how you’re doing.) But I’ve only known a few who were determined to segue from film writer to filmmaker — and one of ’em was Dina Gachman, who just finished her graduate thesis film at USC.
We’ve been inundated with emails promoting this amazing toilet-cum-aquarium for the past few weeks — to the point that some of us around the office have created a running joke about making a movie about a killer fish that lives in the toilet called FIN ROT! It’s a fish tank, it’s a toilet tank, it’s a terrarium (yes you can put a lizard in there), it’s …..
FISH ‘N FLUSH! Interactive and events can be found here!
Yes, there’s fish in the clear tank — don’t worry, they come to no harm And even the mainstream Web media is into it. What next? Koalas in my dryer? Oh, you kids ….
PS on Google one of the search returns for this thingie is titled “Flushing Nemo” heh
I promised this blog wouldn’t turn into a cornucopia of hot-boy postings, but hey, they asked for it! The new 2007 San Francisco Bike Messenger Calendar is here …
All local SF models — the designers and printers too. You can get a copy (or several if you’re prone to sticky fingers) at Box Dog Bikes and Refried Cycles. No word yet on whether the proceeds go to the Home for Wayward Messengers aka my light well …..
PS I totally get points for not making any “package delivery in the rear” jokes. I do!
1) iTootle
2) Screen out stalkers 15 different ways!
3) Blow off iBill collectors 15 different ways!
4) Get telemarketed on several platforms simultaneously
5) Chat with your avatar. (“Hey Marke3! What’s up?” “Oh, you know, just being you. But, like, in a giant vat of digital pudding with three stripper wrestler guys.”)
6) Order more custom-made utilikilts and flashing LCD belt buckles online (“I heart Apple!” “Jobs Rules!” “Desperate!”)
7) Bask in your lousy superiortechnolity, while the world goes to hell. But it’s OK, you can order the iVid for later and watch it on your hi-def AppleTV box.
8) Get sued by Cisco for telling people you have an iPhone
I still want one, though.
Almost-fabulous intern and alcohol enthusiast Jonathan Beckhardt weighs in on He’Brew….
Despite 5000 years of survival guilt from Noah to Wiesel, Jews have shockingly little presence in the alcohol business. One notable exception: San Francisco’s Schmaltz brewing company, makers of the He’brew line of beers.
A few weeks ago, The Guardian published a guide to Christmas beers and, to our embarrassment, we overlooked the Chanukah beer from this outfit, “Monumental Jewbelation”. We wish fervently to render reparation here.
In honor of the company’s 10th anniversary, the beer tops out at 10% alcohol. That’s monstrous, but balanced enough to remain steady. A syrupy texture captures the right amount of bitterness to match the malty flavors in the drink. It’s the roasted flavors in this beer, though, that make it the perfect match for your next Christmas ham.
I used to have a recurring nightmare as a child that I was trapped in the opening credits of Scooby Doo. It was kind of an erotic nightmare: the rainbow-cartoon swamps, the undulating haunted mansions, the moaning ghosts with their morphenomenal yaws. The dream would go on for hours and I’d wake in the rough heat of my hermetic, carpeted bedroom, the gray footsie-bottoms of my PJs scraping against the cotton sheets. Now, alas, Scooby Doo is dead.
Or at least his creator is. Animation legend Iwao Takamoto died last week at age 82. This incredibly thoughtful “recycled” piece in Slate by Chris Suellentrop lays out all the influence that Scooby’s had on the world of animation and pop culture. It’s an odd, sad moment. I’ll have to light one up for Shaggy. And pick up a dyke for Velma. But will Scooby haunt my dreams again?
Yes, I’m from Detroit, where the frickin’ autoshow was shoved down my throat constantly. (It’s so huge now, they’re threatening to tear down the host site, Cobo Arena, and build a bigger showplace — uh, I thought the car companies were as broke as Dennis Rodman’s penis up Madonna…) And yes, innumerable Detroiters laughingly forwarded me that piece from the New York Times last week about San Francisco parking rage. (We’re killing each other for spaces!). But look! All the rage at this year’s autoshow is the debut — well, in 2008 — of the eminently parkable two-seater we’ve been tempted by for years and years — the SmartCar.
The model us Merikkkans get is called the Fortwo, which already killed ’em in Canadaland. Forget the clouds of Hybrid smug, Cartman, soon these will be insufferably and necessarily omnipresent among the do-good celeb classes. Of course, DaimlerChrysler, the US distributor, hopes folks, buy it as a second car for city driving — no need to compact that Benz just yet. Still, for this car not to inspire a riot among hemi-bling Detroiters means the ecology’s come a long way …. now about the trans fat from all them biscuits ….
Will there be tape on their mojito glasses? Will everyone be “doin’ the snarf”? It’s the annual Macworld Blast this Tuesday “night” (8-11pm, duh) — and I wasn’t invited!
Promising “live entertainment” (The Klezmatics, mayhaps?), a chance to “mix and mingle with fellow Macworld attendees, speakers, and staff,” and a grand location (“The Moscone Center, in the South Hall at the bottom of the escalator”), Macworld Blast is something I’m dying to infiltrate — it’s sold out at $40 a ticket.
So I figure I’ll just hang out outside the Moscone and jump tipsy Macaddicts for their iPods (and maybe nifty new iPhones). That shit’ll Ebay my way to Cancun, baby! I loves me some Macworld Expo …
Tranny of the Year (so far): The New York Times just published an article on Ali Saleem, better known to Pakistani prime time viewers as Begum Nawazish Ali, hostess of the wildly popular (at least among more secular Karachi residents) “Late Night Show With Begum Nawazish Ali.” A self-described transvestite who poses as a “flirty, teasing widow” who’s obsessed with glamor and subtle political commentary, she somehow gets away with some amazing taboo-breaking she-ite on her weekly talk show over there.
First I melted, then I hit up YouTube. One word: WHAT??? People, I think I’m in love. Anyone who blames the government for her hair color in both Urdu (I think) and English — and addresses her audience as “Johnnies” — has my undying devotion. Work it out, lady.
Somebody call the gay circus — Rimling Bros and Barndoor Bailey are a-comin’ to town. Rainbows! Rainbows! Rainbows!
It’s a whole spectrum of tacky fruit flavor down on 18th Street in the Castro, with the new … wait for it …. wait for it … 18th Street Bar. Extra points for the sign’s tres delish font. Did they cut the letters out of felt themselves? How many Glue Sticks were used? I’ve got questions.
So, OK, I don’t know really where to begin reading on this mess ….
No nude hippies, please. Girl I’m still hung over three days later. This is what I woke up to on the sidewalk this morning …
If anyone can tell me what I did this weekend, besides lose my cell phone down the toilet at the Transfer, please call this number …
Alexis A. Tioseco, editor-in-chief of the superb site Criticine, contributed a manifesto/essay to the Guardian’s 2006 film issue. He’s also compiled an annotated list of favorite films from Southeast Asia, which cites a number of emerging filmmakers, including the intriguing Edwin. Here’s Alexis:
With the space limited to me, I’d like to run my list a bit differently, writing strictly about Southeast Asian cinema (lord knows it gets overlooked enough), and listing a feature, a short, and an older work for each major SEA filmmaking country: Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore (I cheat with Malaysia but that’s ok).
Still from A Very Slow Breakfast, by Edwin
Now is the time to see Pan’s Labyrinth — and to read Sara Schieron’s interview with the man behind the movie, Guillermo Del Toro.
Guillermo Del Toro
Gleamy-eyed as Santa Claus and every bit as generous, Guillermo del Toro recently visited SF to discuss his latest film, Pan’s Labyrinth. Already seen by droves of festivalgoers, Pan’s Labyrinth is worthy of profound praise. Both Del Toro and his movies have developed a reputation for converting skeptics to affectionate believers – perhaps this has something to do with his genuine (and apparently altruistic) interest in the world. He’s disarming in his curiosity. (Note: Had Del Toro not said, “Don’t chicken out,” the personal bits that follow would so have been cut.)
One highlight of this week’s 2006 Film opus is Jason Shamai’s tale of DVD buying and watching in Mexico City. Here it is, sans the cuts required for it to fit into the newspaper:
When I got to Mexico City’s main ceremonial drag, where national parades and military marches are flanked by the Art Nouveau-style Palacio de Bellas Artes and the most striking Sears department store building you will ever see, it had transformed into a full-on tent city: blue tarp, camping tents, and thousands of political cartoons (ranging from the dryly satirical to the scatological) flowed east for at least half a mile and filled the Zócalo, the city’s vast central plaza where people had already been camped for weeks. Just a few days before, Mexico’s highest electoral court had confirmed National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderon as the country’s next president. His opponent Andreas Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), who challenged the cleanliness of the election that had him losing by a little over half of a percentage point, had asked that his camped-out supporters stay right where they were until they could force a vote-by-vote recount. The recount had been denied and Calderon was now certain to replace outgoing president Vicente Fox, but AMLO’s supporters were still there in their virtual city within a city.
Tom Tykwer’s film version of the cult novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer hits screens this week. Sara Schieron recently talked with the director:
Peter Süskind’s 1985 novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer has inspired a lot of musical adaptations. German band Rammstein and Portugese band Moonspell have both called the book an influence, and Kurt Cobain, who named the book as his favorite, wrote the song “Scentless Apprentice” in reaction to it.
Tom Tykwer directing Perfume
The novel’s musical associations in mind, it’s not just coincidence that put Tom Tykwer in charge of the film adaptation. A composer as well as a writer/director, Tykwer is most recognized in the US for his techno-paced action drama Run Lola Run. His newest film, which takes place in 18th century France, follows a pace better suited for the Berlin Philharmonic. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a chiaroscuro painting set to music. As much about love and identity as it is about legend and fame, it inspires questions. Tykwer let me ask him a few — beginning with one that provoked a high-pitched, giddy laugh.
Intern Aaron Sankin’s take on the recent live SF appearance of Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, two of the creators of the show Stella
The first time I saw Stella I was instantly enraptured. It was clever, it was funny, and, most of all, it was zany. Zany like the old Marx brothers movies (which, for my money, are the funniest things to have ever been committed to celluloid); zany like the Animaniacs cartoons that entertained me for many a Cheerio-filled Saturday morning. Zany in a way that modern comedy no longer is. Hip comedy now days is frantic and schizophrenic but zany it is not. Family Guy, the show that is currently pushing the televised comedic envelope these days, has all the elements of zaniness—the non-stop barrage of jokes, the relative minimum of importance put things like plot and character development, pratfalls—but lacks the childlike innocence that true zaniness requires.
Urban wildlife sightings are always joyous things – but not if you’re a rat. We spied this gorg bird from our offices on Potrero Hill and watched it tear the entrails from a humongoid rodent. Missed our deadlines, but it was much better than the Discovery Channel.
Photos by Joe Pennant.
