The Napper Tandy

I found my new favorite bar last Saturday. Located at 24th & S.Van Ness in the Mission District of San Francisco, it came out of nowhere and totally hit the spot. Bless you, The Napper Tandy.

Fall is upon us. In addition to eating many brussel sprouts and roasted meats, I've been craving a quiet dark wood-panelled bar with rain dappled windowpanes and a fireplace and maybe bookshelves. Just to like have a Guiness and kick it all mellow and cozy or something.

So imagine my delight when, walking home after a mediocre Oaxacan art experience, Amy, Dan and I pop into the Napper Tandy for a quick drink. The place is small and wood panelled and is kinda like an Irish pub but with a sports bar and divey feel. The clientele was an impossible mix of blue collars, real Irish people, professional alcoholics, and a sprinkling of (here's the impossible part) unannoying hipsters. We sat down around a big huge barrel-cum-table and noted our good fortune.

Shortly thereafter, a dude busts out a laptop and some speakers in the corner of the bar and starts handing out karaoke menus. That was awesome because he seemed completely unaffiliated with the bar staff. It became even more awesome when people started singing and we kept drinking. A corn-fed fratty or just ruddy-faced Irish dude sang/yelled Frank Sinatra ("I did it - fucking - Myyyy! Waaaay!"). A large gothy woman who was double fisting bloody marys and kept saying "I'm so wasted. I am a reverend. I just married my friends!" sang Total Eclipse of the Heart. A short man appeared a full suit and sang Copacabana. And then Corn Fed was back singing the White Stripes' Seven Nation Army and we looked over and the karaoke DJ was accompaning with slide whistle like he was Kenny G. That is when we lost it, erupted in laughter, slapped our knees, and declared it the best bar ever.

And guess the DJ's response to our laughter. He pulled a cow bell from his backpack and gave it to us. I shit you not. A cow bell. We played the crap out of that cow bell. I am totally buying a recorder or a triangle or some wooden rectangle blocks and showing up next Saturday.

PS: Cool homeless people in the area. We're reading Gravity's Rainbow for our book club, and when Amy and Dad were walking home some dude exclaimed - out of nowhere! - "Gravity's Rainbow is difficult but worth it."

Clowns: Friend or Foe?

Hey let's talk about clowns! Here are some thoughts to get us started.


(1) My brother's childhood bedroom had several framed clown faces. Most were illustrations and I think that's just how my parents decorated his room (versus it being something he liked). They were serious-faced and I remember them with a mix of interest and distrust.


(2) Pennywise. In junior high my friends Erin and Alli and I spent many evenings watching It and eating shephard's pie. It was just what we did for a few months.




(3) What's the worst thing about having sex with children? Getting blood on your clownsuit.



(4) Diane Keaton collects clown paintings and put out the simply titled book Clown Paintings. It contains many paintings alongside quotes from comedians (most of whom, not surprisingly, hate clowns).

(5) I love the Saw movies. My friend Katie just went to her high school reunion in Kansas and hung out with the writer/director. I now have a cocktail napkin that says "Linda - Stay sick & twisted. Darren Bousman."

(6) Capturing the Friedmans is a great documentary following a high school computer science teacher caught in a child pornography sting and then charged with molesting many of his students. He eventually pled guilty to sodomy and sexual abuse, as did his youngest son, but the documentary is fascinating because it consists of family home videos and one never really knows whether such abuse actually occurred. Interestingly, the filmmaker got the idea for the documentary when he was interviewing entertainers on the Manhattan child's party circuit. The most successful clown seemed to have a hidden sadness, and upon further digging, the filmmaker discovered his father was Mr. Friedman.



(7) Serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who raped and murdered 33 boys and young men (29 of whom he buried under his house) is known as the "Killer Clown" because of the many block parties he threw for his friends and neighbors, entertaining children in a clown suit and makeup under the name of "Pogo the Clown."

(8) Jack Perry (Zig of the popular Australian clown duo, Zig and Zag) raped his own grandaughter and pled guilty in 1994.

Chemistry of Kissing

Another in my series of entertaining MSN "Dating and Relating" articles. Comments in italics.

You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss. Hang on a minute. No it isn’t! Because when it comes to dating, a kiss can change everything. Sometimes it’s spine-tinglingly magical and sends shivers from your neck to your toes. And sometimes, well, it feels more like licking a wet fish. While the chemistry you feel on your night out says a lot about how the kiss might go, there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of butterflies, chills, fireworks, and other memory-making moments. Try these lip-smacking tips to make this the first of many kisses to come.

Okay this is just the introduction and I already feel uncomfortable and I'm making a disgusted frowny face.

Read when the moment is right. If you really can’t read your date, make yourself available for your date to make the move. Lee’s suggestions: Stand close to your date, and let your arm rub against his or hers. Face your date with your arms open, not crossed, to show you’re open to a kiss. Tell your date you had a good time, and ask your date how they felt. And most important? “Smile. A lot of people are turned on by a smile, which shows you’re comfortable with the person you’re with and happy. If your date thinks he or she is making you happy,” points out Lee, “then he or she is likely to think a kiss can make you even happier.”

This is totally a Sims game, where you make some figure shimmy robotically sideways, brush arms, turn 90 degrees, open their arms a tad, and then the other figure embraces them (also robotically). Maybe the part about smiling is true, I don't know, all I know is it's totally gross and awkward to articulate that. I can't even explain how creeped out I am, you guys.

Lock lips in a place where you don’t have to hold back. Yes, it’s romantic to kiss, say, out on a street corner, but if you’re not the PDA type, you might end up holding back during your kiss. And those unsure feelings could hold back a fireworks-worthy performance. The fact is, kissing signals our brains to produce oxytocin, a hormone that gives us that wonderful, weak-kneed feeling. And the chemicals that produced that feeling prompt you to want to kiss more and create more, like a love drug. To make sure nothing stops that chemistry-building chemical process, make sure you’re in a spot where you feel comfortable and safe, and you’re not worried about what you’re doing or who’s watching: Move inside a doorway, behind a column, into a quiet room, or in the front seat of a dark car. That way, you and your date’s bodies will be free to do what they’re — ahhhhh, sigh, melt — supposed to.

The last thing you wanna do is stop a chemistry-building chemical process. Wait, what? I just, ugh, it's so gross that somebody sat down and thought about this and typed it out and edited it and published it. "You might end up holding back during your kiss...like a love drug....you and your date's bodies fee to do what they're... " ARGH. Fuck. Stop it!

Make eye contact before, during, and after your kiss. Eye contact immediately ups the intimacy level of any sexual act, say experts—so if you’re smooching with your peepers shut tight, you could be missing out! Even recently-single singer Jessica Simpson is a fan of opening her eyes during a smooch. “I love to kiss with my eyes open,” she’s said. “It’s kind of weird because you might only see one eyeball, but it’s amazing what you can see through someone’s eyes. It sounds clichéd, but the eyes really are the window to the soul.” So, before you go for gold, take a few seconds — one Mississippi, two Mississippi — to look at your partner eye-to-eye and establish this is a special moment between the two of you. After you first kiss, pull back, open your eyes, really look at your date, then kiss again. Then, open your eyes once during the kiss to bring the personal touch home.

Smooching with peepers shut tight. Say that five times and your brain will explode. Thank god there's a Jessica Simpson quote so we can laugh and relieve the tension. Because then it says to "establish this is a special moment between the two of you," and "bring the personal touch home." Holy SHIT.

Feel free to talk a little. Kissing is such a strong language, it’s easy to wonder: Does yapping in between smooches ruin the moment? Not always. Compliments do two things. “One, they show that you’re serious about the particular person you’re kissing, and that it’s truly personal,” says Christian. “Two, it communicates that you’re in the first stage of what your body wishes was a bigger, closer connection. Your feelings are so huge, you’re having to hold back. This says it’s not just a kiss, it’s the start of something incredible.” Let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to know they’re causing that?

Okay, am I going to laugh or cry? Some kind of hysterics are about to happen. I absolutely cannot handle this last part about bodies wishing for a closer connection and "the start of something incredible." I can't even make this funny. Nothing in this post is funny. I'm seriously just too creeped out.

Mike Birbiglia

So cute, he reminds me of Paul Rudd. I don't really LOL but he's charming.

Zach Galanofamarrymerightnow.

Zach Galafianakis in Ellen's audience. I love this so much. Reminds me of when my mom and I sat in the audience for Jim Carrey on Ellen (mom loves "his contortions"). A mercifully brief clip of our dancing made it on air.

The Gold Club

I ate lunch at The Gold Club last Friday with Mama J and Cyn W. The $5 midday cover buys you not only one ticket to paradise but also a free buffet. I'm talkin fried chicken and ribs and mashed potatoes and spring rolls and taquitos and salad and cookies.

We discussed pole technique, T versus A, outfits we'd wear as strippers, zoning ordinances and code enforcement against adult businesses, and what it would take for strippers to embody female empowerment. Good good times.

But I have a point here. Many of the ladies were, in obnoxious frat parlance, "beat". There was only one fresh faced attractive young thing that "got me to look at her face" (Mama and Cyn enjoyed that phrase). I know a lunchtime crowd is probably not when the foxes work it out, but I wonder how realistic fresh sexy strippers/prostitutes are and how much they cost. Anybody?

Bologna sandwiches.

Paris Hilton: I don't really want to talk about [jail] anymore.

David Letterman: That's how you and I are different. Because that's all I want to talk about.



HaHa. OWNED.

Anne

You know my MySpace friend Goldie. Meet another of my MySpace friends: Anne. She didn't just appear magically like Goldie did. No. She meticulously searched me out because we were both [sorority] at [university], despite the fact that she graduated in 1952.


She's a genealogist, Mayflower descendant, music lover, quilter, mother of five talented adult children, and lover of life. She likes good church music, some country with a good beat, or whatever else suits her fancy. She is not at all impressed with the reality shows but she likes the new woman president show. Authors? Dan Brown...and of course The Bible.


She's also friends with this dude Sheldon:



The End.

I missed you too.

Apologies for the break.

My home internet/cable blew out last Tuesday and wasn't fixed until yesterday. It's a SUPER interesting story involving a lot of "We'll be there between 8-12 or 1-5 [and if you leave the house for just 10 minutes we won't call you we'll reschedule but not tell you for when, repeat, repeat, repeat, comedy of retarded errors]."

I take my internet intraveneously, so it was hard going cold turkey. As Magda wrote: "My internet/cable went away for like a day and a half and Month and I stared at each other, with trembling chins, wondering what we should do. We went to dinner, but when we came back, we were still lost little lambs. Turns out our neighbors, who were installing their DirecTV, accidentally unplugged our cable. I hope we never have to live through something like that again."

She's right. Nobody should have to live like that. But there are some benefits to spending a Saturday at home waiting for the cable guy without internet or television: (i) a clean-ass motherfucking apartment; (ii) watching Freaks and Geeks and remembering how good it is; (iii) reading 3 pages of Gravity's Rainbow.

Chips

My office has a 4:00 happy hour snacky thing on Fridays. Last week I left my office to walk into the party. As I walked down the hall, I passed three separate people:

Person #1 (Amazed): There's no chips!

Person #2 (Disgruntled): No chips.

Person #3 (Muttering): No chips in there.