**this was for a class assignment of writing about Barry Bonds in the influence of "The Pride of the Yankees"- focusing on how we develop "heroes" through narratives**
It was easy and fun for me, I hate to see what all my Red Sox and Yankee fan classmates do with it....
The Pride of the Giants: A True Story about the Bonds Family Legacy.
In this dramatic sports and family narrative we meet Bobby and Barry Bonds, a father and son both famous to the world through both their public baseball successes and their private personal failures.
The film begins in the 1950’s in suburban Riverside, California where a high-school aged Bobby Bonds is falling in love with the game of baseball alongside his older-wise teammate, Dusty Baker. Both excellent players, Dusty is drafted out of high school by the Braves and Bobby, after graduation, signs with the San Francisco Giants farm system.
Bobby is thrilled, he has everything he’s ever wanted in life: he’s hanging out with big leaguers like Willie Mays, he’s met and married beautiful Patricia Howard and she’s given birth to his first son, Barry Lamar Bonds.
In one particularly moving scene we see Bobby on his first day at “the big show” in San Francisco. Barry is two and is bouncing on his mother’s lap. Willie Mays comes over and pats the young Bonds on the head, he is-after all- his godfather. Willie and Bobby shake hands and head into the dugout together, Bobby following Willie like a nervous puppy.
When it’s his time to bat, Bobby emerges to his name being called over the loudspeaker at foggy Candlestick Park: “Bobby Bonds!”
The San Francisco crowd in orange and black jumps to their feet in applause for the first-timer. “C’mon, Bonds, let’s see whatcha got!”
He steps up to the plate, bases loaded, and knocks the fast pitch out of the park.
Over the next twelve years, Bobby Bonds becomes a star ballplayer, beloved by the fans of San Francisco and dubbed “the next Willie Mays” by the media and front office staff. Barry Lamar grew up on the Giants outfield, competing for fly balls against his father and Willie Mays and often times winning.
Playing alongside Mays, his hero, and his son, and raising his family in San Francisco, Bobby thought he was living his dream: playing in the city he loved, with and for the people he loved.
But then in ‘72, Mays was traded to the New York Mets. Bobby himself, was horrified and shocked to be traded in ‘75 to the Yankees: the next “Willie Mays” for the next “Mickey Mantle.”
The news rocked San Francisco, losing their long-time favorite; news rocked the Bonds family and Bobby himself could barely understand the betrayal, the casting-out of a member of the San Francisco family. The game was changing. It was becoming a monstrous business.
And for the remainder of his bitter and highly transient career, Bobby never forgave the front office of San Francisco, nor did he forgive the media for turning their backs on him after he was gone.
Baseball is fickle, he taught his son Barry. Don’t trust anyone. Bobby and Willie would sit together and talk about the business of baseball, the racist and corporate institution.
And though they pushed Barry to succeed in the game, sometimes a little too hard, they never let him forget that he should never trust the game or the people who ran it.
When Barry is a star-baseball player graduating from high school in Northern California, Bobby refuses to let him sign with the San Francisco Giants. He shakes his head and fights every word of the contract they sent over. So instead of signing with a team, Barry instead goes to college, develops further skill in Arizona and then is drafted by Pittsburgh after graduation.
In 1993, after Bobby’s old friend Dusty Baker is promoted to Manager of the San Francisco Giants, Bobby agrees to encourage his son to return to the Giants, the institution he’s never quite forgiven. “You’ll take care of my, son?” Bobby asks Dusty. “Like my own,” Baker promises. The men shake hands. Bobby trusts very few people but Dusty Baker is one of them.
Headlines: "Barry and Baker, San Francisco’s Dream Team” "Barry wins NL MVP AGAIN" "Barry Bonds, San Francisco Super Star" "Pacific Bell Park: The House that Barry Built"
In 2001, Barry breaks the record for homeruns in a single season. In 2002, the Giants host a ceremony naming "Barry Bonds Day" in honor of their superstar player. Dusty Baker and Barry take the 2002 team on to win the NL Pennant. Barry tells the newspapers: I don't care about my records, I want a World Series ring.
The Giants lose the 2002 World Series in game 7. In the team's hotel bar GM Brian Sabean throws a temper tantrum and announces he plans to rid the team of Dusty Baker. A few days later, Baker's contract is not renewed.
Bobby continues to nag Barry over the phone and in person and Barry, in general, has become a very standoffish person, not trusting media but also never really feeling accepted by his dad.
Extra Extra read all about it! “San Francisco’s Golden Boy caught rigged up in illegal steroid scandal!” The papers line the edges of San Mateo General Hospital where Bobby Bonds sits on his death bed. With Barry at his side and Willie Mays on the other end of the phone line, Bobby loses his battle with cancer. The papers continue to come in, the reporters continue to thrust their microphones in Barry’s face as he exits the hospital. "Losing dad is the worst thing in the world,” is all Barry can say. “But Barry, what about the steroids?” “BALCO Barry, tell us about Balco.”
"My career is an open book, but my life is not.” Barry says as he scowls at the reporters and walks away.
The Mets are in town and Barry steps up to the plate. “Boooo!” screams a man in orange and blue holding up a sign that reads, “Barry’s a lie!” “Cheater!” chants a group of visiting fan’s children in the bleachers. The Giants fans hold their breath, knowing this is Barry’s first at bat since his father’s death. The pitch comes and Barry lofts it out of the park, splashing the white pill into the San Francisco Bay. He slowly trots around the bases to a combination of boos and cheers and silence from the fans who don’t know what to think. When he reaches home plate he points his fingers to the sky in honor of his dad, a tear slides down his cheek and he walks to the dugout.
Headlines and media frenzy take over the narrative. “Barry Breaks Aaron’s Record, Aaron not pleased,” “Barry Indicted.” “Bonds Scandal Murders the Dreams of Children.” “Bonds personally responsible for 9/11, Bush calls for expensive investigation.” We see images of Barry walking in and out of the courthouse. We see Marc Ecko’s campaign to add an asterisk to Bond’s name in the Hall of Fame. A courtroom scene: Barry stands, says “Not guilty.”
2007. AT&T Park in San Francisco. Fans hold signs that read, “Goodbye Barry”. His name is called from the line-up and he trots out onto the field. The crowd stands and cheers. A group of cub scouts yell, “We love you Barry!” Newspaper headline crumpled on the ground under the feet of bleacher fans reads: Barry’s Giants Contract Not Renewed. Goodbye Bonds.
It’s a fall day in a cemetery looking out onto the SF Bay’s peninsula. Willie Mays walks up to Barry Bonds who is standing over his father, Bobby’s grave. Barry is no longer employed by any major league franchise and his indictment is set to begin in Federal court. He’s somber as he stands and Willie Mays tries to comfort him.
“If that was what baseball is, how could you have ever pushed me to do it? All I ever wanted to do was please you and my father, to win a championship and to be the best baseball player I could be. Now, instead, I’m the scapegoat for everything that’s ever been wrong with the game. They’ve painted me to be a fool.”
“Barry,” Willie Mays asks softly as he leans over the top of his cane, “Remember the night you broke the homerun record for the season?
“Yeah, but-”
“Remember how it sounded at that exact moment, like a rocket shot of cheers?”
“Uh-huh,”
“Somewhere in the middle of the ballpark, a little girl grabbed onto her father in the most excitement she’s ever felt in her life. And another man somewhere in the park looked into the eyes of the woman who loves him most as she leapt up from her seat.”
“So?”
“So? Barry, that is what baseball is. Those moments, what they do for people. And you’ve given baseball to those people, Barry, nothing the papers or teams say will ever take that away from them. That’s something that your father never learned and something I still struggle with to this day. But I remind myself that those moments are what baseball is, Barry, the rest, the rest of the mess is just business.”
“Willie,” Barry asks in a small voice of his godfather, “do you think my dad would be proud?”
“He always was, son,” Willie answers, “He always was.”
The film ends with Barry and Willie looking out over the valley of California’s great bay as the sun sets over the cemetery.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Baseball and Brioche is MOVING!!!
stay tuned for the deets. i'll tweet and facebook folks who are in the know. find me on twitter @mzmeg
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Nostalgia-trip
How many times have I driven over this bridge?
The Golden Gate is what people associate with San Francisco but my story begins and continues on the Bay Bridge, connecting Oakland with San Francisco's Financial, SOMA and Mission districts.
It started as an undergrad, living in Berkeley's sorority houses, commuting to Pacific Bell Park; Piedmont to College, Highway 24 to Highway 80, bridge and exit at Folsom Street. That time also included various ventures to the Richmond District and home : Geary to Stanyon and then the magic of the stoplights of Oak Street, turning green on command and allowing you to zip across town in the late night hours.
One time coming home at 3am on the lower tunnel of the Bay Bridge, a car pulled up next to me to display a creep with his hand down his pants, keeping in line with my Buick Century's ebb and flow on the lonely stretch of highway above water. I jammed on my breaks and shaking, realized I was a young woman alone in a car.
And that's who I continued to be when I moved into a duplex off San Pablo in South Berkeley, right off the University Ave on-ramp to 80, 6 minutes from the toll-plaza. Serena, Jayne and I shared a three bedroom, split level and ate a lot of Jack N' the Box. Our apartment was broken into right before we moved ourselves in but after we'd moved in our boxes of college crap.
I was the first to move in that house on Allston as I slept, the first time ever alone in a house, in a city, with my right hand wrapped around the neck of a baseball bat. My father had tried to give me a hand-gun to keep. I wrapped my hand around it's grip but couldn't take it out of the holster.
"If the safety comes off, you're pulling the trigger," my father established of the hand-gun's rules.
That concept shook me as I realized I wasn't ready to keep a gun.
"The bat's the next runner up," my father said before leaving me alone to ponder my third home in the Bay Area.
That winter break I continued to commute to Pacific Bell Park, this time in a green Ford Taurus, aptly dubbed, "the Little Mermaid" for her ability to glide through the rain and look as wide as a whale.
The Mermaid came with me two years later when I moved into my breathtaking studio apartment on the Best Street of San Francisco, in the BEST neighborhood of San Francisco, saddling the top of it's BEST park with the most INCREDIBLE views of the city.
The Mermaid was now commuting the opposite direction on the Bay Bridge, getting to know the stress of rushing against straffic, a salmon under the top deck, spawning towards the cute towns of the East Bay that were now the places where I worked before I returned home, the the city I liked better all along.
As I got to know the city better, I got to thinking a lot about her streets and avenues; which lane one should be in while taking Franklin instead of Van Ness and why Guerrero just might be the vein of the city's auto transportation. The Bay Bridge became a burden and once I moved to the Mission District, the Mermaid sat parked while I explored the underground snake of BART.
BART is an entirely new perspective on the repetition of city-to-city transport. Instead of the splay of cars from the mouth of the Eastbound tunnel into the four separate freeways which feed the East Bay and a sometimes hopeful sunset over the downtown views of 80 West, BART pops your ears under the water of the San Francisco Bay before thrusting you in the lap of West Oakland. There in a parking lot to your left, sitting before the aggressive blossoming of condominiums, is a Burning Man collective that, depending on the time of year, displays large burnable statues and animal-shaped mobile art. It's weird and also slightly annoying but it's also distinctly Bay Area and there's some charm to that.
When BART dips above ground again at McCarthur, I look to the left of the train to the underside of the 580 interchange and see how many people are still sleeping there or, if the area is empty, wonder what time the police did a "clean out". As 2008 unfolded and the ecomonomy slips more and more obviously into recession, there are more people sleeping outside, there are more people sleeping in cars. Oakland, like my neighborhood in San Francisco, starts to play host to a series of fancy condos with people still sleeping outside them.
From 16th Street BART station to downtown Berkeley, the number of people living outside, panhandling and using scarier and scarier amounts of drugs becomes worse. And the condo market becomes shiner and the coffee shops more abundant. The middle class, what's left, rides BART and ride bikes and those living inbetween the very rich and very poor find ways to survive by picking up a second job or relocating to a rural area.
But this story is about the Bay Bridge and the promises it makes and keeps, the places which it has taken me and the way it has held me up, somehow kept me driving straight, especially when I've felt a strong urge to veer my steering wheel hard right and push my weight into the gas pedal.
But the Bay Bridge always got me home.
When I was a young girl living in Tahoe, I loved nothing better in the entire world than to come to San Francisco and the drive there was the best part. The city unfolds right in front of you, the pink and yellow houses of Nob Hill and the asymmetry of the downtown triangle. I would cry to myself when driving home, even then knowing that act was slightly dramatic but using it to pay homage to the kinship I felt with the city.
The City. Living in the City, the City of San Francisco. A City Girl. It's hard to reconcile the act of leaving this city and of loving her and the memories and people she holds. The memories in every stretch of pavement, every store front and parking space, the feeling I get around 11th Avenue and on Embarcadero at the foot of the Ballpark, and the bridge is just a monster of memories. So many stories were bookended by her stretch between the towns she holds apart. And the radio was always on and the window was always down, even just a little bit.
95% of my life will change in 3 weeks when I move across the country. There's a lot to do, there are a lot of people to see and yet, the only image I have is of that final moment I'll have, looking back over the bridge to the city I hate to leave. I know I'll come back and that the feeling, just as it can be incited while exiting, is reversable upon re-entry. I know I'll be back but still dread the image of leaving; the connotations of catapulting East.
I just wonder what song will be on the radio.
The Golden Gate is what people associate with San Francisco but my story begins and continues on the Bay Bridge, connecting Oakland with San Francisco's Financial, SOMA and Mission districts.
It started as an undergrad, living in Berkeley's sorority houses, commuting to Pacific Bell Park; Piedmont to College, Highway 24 to Highway 80, bridge and exit at Folsom Street. That time also included various ventures to the Richmond District and home : Geary to Stanyon and then the magic of the stoplights of Oak Street, turning green on command and allowing you to zip across town in the late night hours.
One time coming home at 3am on the lower tunnel of the Bay Bridge, a car pulled up next to me to display a creep with his hand down his pants, keeping in line with my Buick Century's ebb and flow on the lonely stretch of highway above water. I jammed on my breaks and shaking, realized I was a young woman alone in a car.
And that's who I continued to be when I moved into a duplex off San Pablo in South Berkeley, right off the University Ave on-ramp to 80, 6 minutes from the toll-plaza. Serena, Jayne and I shared a three bedroom, split level and ate a lot of Jack N' the Box. Our apartment was broken into right before we moved ourselves in but after we'd moved in our boxes of college crap.
I was the first to move in that house on Allston as I slept, the first time ever alone in a house, in a city, with my right hand wrapped around the neck of a baseball bat. My father had tried to give me a hand-gun to keep. I wrapped my hand around it's grip but couldn't take it out of the holster.
"If the safety comes off, you're pulling the trigger," my father established of the hand-gun's rules.
That concept shook me as I realized I wasn't ready to keep a gun.
"The bat's the next runner up," my father said before leaving me alone to ponder my third home in the Bay Area.
That winter break I continued to commute to Pacific Bell Park, this time in a green Ford Taurus, aptly dubbed, "the Little Mermaid" for her ability to glide through the rain and look as wide as a whale.
The Mermaid came with me two years later when I moved into my breathtaking studio apartment on the Best Street of San Francisco, in the BEST neighborhood of San Francisco, saddling the top of it's BEST park with the most INCREDIBLE views of the city.
The Mermaid was now commuting the opposite direction on the Bay Bridge, getting to know the stress of rushing against straffic, a salmon under the top deck, spawning towards the cute towns of the East Bay that were now the places where I worked before I returned home, the the city I liked better all along.
As I got to know the city better, I got to thinking a lot about her streets and avenues; which lane one should be in while taking Franklin instead of Van Ness and why Guerrero just might be the vein of the city's auto transportation. The Bay Bridge became a burden and once I moved to the Mission District, the Mermaid sat parked while I explored the underground snake of BART.
BART is an entirely new perspective on the repetition of city-to-city transport. Instead of the splay of cars from the mouth of the Eastbound tunnel into the four separate freeways which feed the East Bay and a sometimes hopeful sunset over the downtown views of 80 West, BART pops your ears under the water of the San Francisco Bay before thrusting you in the lap of West Oakland. There in a parking lot to your left, sitting before the aggressive blossoming of condominiums, is a Burning Man collective that, depending on the time of year, displays large burnable statues and animal-shaped mobile art. It's weird and also slightly annoying but it's also distinctly Bay Area and there's some charm to that.
When BART dips above ground again at McCarthur, I look to the left of the train to the underside of the 580 interchange and see how many people are still sleeping there or, if the area is empty, wonder what time the police did a "clean out". As 2008 unfolded and the ecomonomy slips more and more obviously into recession, there are more people sleeping outside, there are more people sleeping in cars. Oakland, like my neighborhood in San Francisco, starts to play host to a series of fancy condos with people still sleeping outside them.
From 16th Street BART station to downtown Berkeley, the number of people living outside, panhandling and using scarier and scarier amounts of drugs becomes worse. And the condo market becomes shiner and the coffee shops more abundant. The middle class, what's left, rides BART and ride bikes and those living inbetween the very rich and very poor find ways to survive by picking up a second job or relocating to a rural area.
But this story is about the Bay Bridge and the promises it makes and keeps, the places which it has taken me and the way it has held me up, somehow kept me driving straight, especially when I've felt a strong urge to veer my steering wheel hard right and push my weight into the gas pedal.
But the Bay Bridge always got me home.
When I was a young girl living in Tahoe, I loved nothing better in the entire world than to come to San Francisco and the drive there was the best part. The city unfolds right in front of you, the pink and yellow houses of Nob Hill and the asymmetry of the downtown triangle. I would cry to myself when driving home, even then knowing that act was slightly dramatic but using it to pay homage to the kinship I felt with the city.
The City. Living in the City, the City of San Francisco. A City Girl. It's hard to reconcile the act of leaving this city and of loving her and the memories and people she holds. The memories in every stretch of pavement, every store front and parking space, the feeling I get around 11th Avenue and on Embarcadero at the foot of the Ballpark, and the bridge is just a monster of memories. So many stories were bookended by her stretch between the towns she holds apart. And the radio was always on and the window was always down, even just a little bit.
95% of my life will change in 3 weeks when I move across the country. There's a lot to do, there are a lot of people to see and yet, the only image I have is of that final moment I'll have, looking back over the bridge to the city I hate to leave. I know I'll come back and that the feeling, just as it can be incited while exiting, is reversable upon re-entry. I know I'll be back but still dread the image of leaving; the connotations of catapulting East.
I just wonder what song will be on the radio.
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Good and the Bad
This posts theme-song is brought to you by Daniel Powter.
For maximum effect, play this song as you read my blog. It is what I like to call elementary multimedia.
As what I can only assume was a fond farewell from my neighborhood, my car was keyed last night. As I slept soundly above my Mission alleyway, some person scribbled an illegible script onto my green Taurus and then slipped into the night. Also someone pooped in front of my gate. I do not think the incidents are related but the thought crossed my mind this morning as I noticed both of my Sunday gifts.
I noticed the poop and key-job, then skittered out to Kragen Auto parts where the salesmen were uuber helpful due to the fact that I was the only woman in the store and the only customer sporting purple stretch pants. Upon returning I washed the "Little Mermaid" and buffed the scratches out with the recommended ointment. They looked a little bit better and as I stood back in the delicious sunlight of the inner Mission, I stepped into the large pile of feces I had noticed, remembered and loathed. At that moment I knew the gods, the neighbors and my blog audience would all have a great big laugh at me.
Then I went to work at Gialina where everyone who came in decided to wait by the door. I went up to a customer and said, "there is a great place to stand over there by chalkboard or perhaps you could wait outside." He took advantage of my passive aggressive proposition and retorted, "We are fine here unless we are in your way." I said, "well...um...okay then" and skittered off to talk shit about him with the host.
Honestly, people, I know that it is imperative that you take your asshole tendencies out on the service people around you and in this faltering economy and blame the local businesses for stealing your money but just remember- if you treat me rudely when I wear the apron, I swear, if I ever see you out on the street, I will fucking kill you.
After work I filled my car up with gas and noticed that I had only washed one half of the roof. The racing stripe of dust continued to taunt me as I looked up to see that filling my tank at the cheapest station in San Francisco had cost me $67, easily double what it cost me a few summers ago.
Oh and I said good in the title of this post. To assist you in making sense of that, I should mention that my therapist suggests I start to find joy in the most minute of my daily interactions, including the difficult and taxing ones. My joy in these particular occurences comes in two forms.
1) Last week I was really losing my shit about leaving San Francisco. I was starting to second guess my decision and anticipate a nervous breakdown when crossing the California border. Today was a gift. And while I do plan to move back here in a few years, it is nice to know that I will be moving to a place with cheap rent and where the chances of my car being broken into and vandalized as well as finding people poop outside my door are significantly lower. And with the cost of living low in New Hampshire, I can afford to not work 7 days a week around the pleated, dockered assholes who ate our pizza tonight.
2) I knew it would be a great story. Stepping in the poop was the worst and best moment of my day. Totally funny and I had a nozzled hose in my right hand to immediately remedy the situation. I am a woman who has humor and resourcefulness in plenty and if I have those two things, I feel like I am doing alright.
For maximum effect, play this song as you read my blog. It is what I like to call elementary multimedia.
As what I can only assume was a fond farewell from my neighborhood, my car was keyed last night. As I slept soundly above my Mission alleyway, some person scribbled an illegible script onto my green Taurus and then slipped into the night. Also someone pooped in front of my gate. I do not think the incidents are related but the thought crossed my mind this morning as I noticed both of my Sunday gifts.
I noticed the poop and key-job, then skittered out to Kragen Auto parts where the salesmen were uuber helpful due to the fact that I was the only woman in the store and the only customer sporting purple stretch pants. Upon returning I washed the "Little Mermaid" and buffed the scratches out with the recommended ointment. They looked a little bit better and as I stood back in the delicious sunlight of the inner Mission, I stepped into the large pile of feces I had noticed, remembered and loathed. At that moment I knew the gods, the neighbors and my blog audience would all have a great big laugh at me.
Then I went to work at Gialina where everyone who came in decided to wait by the door. I went up to a customer and said, "there is a great place to stand over there by chalkboard or perhaps you could wait outside." He took advantage of my passive aggressive proposition and retorted, "We are fine here unless we are in your way." I said, "well...um...okay then" and skittered off to talk shit about him with the host.
Honestly, people, I know that it is imperative that you take your asshole tendencies out on the service people around you and in this faltering economy and blame the local businesses for stealing your money but just remember- if you treat me rudely when I wear the apron, I swear, if I ever see you out on the street, I will fucking kill you.
After work I filled my car up with gas and noticed that I had only washed one half of the roof. The racing stripe of dust continued to taunt me as I looked up to see that filling my tank at the cheapest station in San Francisco had cost me $67, easily double what it cost me a few summers ago.
Oh and I said good in the title of this post. To assist you in making sense of that, I should mention that my therapist suggests I start to find joy in the most minute of my daily interactions, including the difficult and taxing ones. My joy in these particular occurences comes in two forms.
1) Last week I was really losing my shit about leaving San Francisco. I was starting to second guess my decision and anticipate a nervous breakdown when crossing the California border. Today was a gift. And while I do plan to move back here in a few years, it is nice to know that I will be moving to a place with cheap rent and where the chances of my car being broken into and vandalized as well as finding people poop outside my door are significantly lower. And with the cost of living low in New Hampshire, I can afford to not work 7 days a week around the pleated, dockered assholes who ate our pizza tonight.
2) I knew it would be a great story. Stepping in the poop was the worst and best moment of my day. Totally funny and I had a nozzled hose in my right hand to immediately remedy the situation. I am a woman who has humor and resourcefulness in plenty and if I have those two things, I feel like I am doing alright.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Thoughts for the Day
1) Ira Glass is dead sexy. I love listening to him; his methodic, melodic voice takes me to new levels of rear neck sweat. I imagine him saying those assertive, dirty things we all need to hear sometimes and let me tell you, I don't have to imagine that hard. If you're thinking of any presents to buy me in the near future, nerdcore it out and light me up a little Ira. Get creative and pair with a battery operated machine or some expensive rubber. No need for a wink/wink/nod/nod here. I'm not ashamed. I want Ira Glass and his thigh numbing voice to take me into my 30's and back. Nough said.
2) My always a tastemaker, never a taster tradition continues as two of my favorite hangouts which I can never afford to patron, won James Beard Awards for 2008. The prestigious honor for best chef from California (or Hawaii) went to Craig Stoll, executive and co-owner of Delfina (on 18th Street). Also on the JB Awards list were Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson, owners of Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, as the best pastry chefs or bakers in America. Tartine Bakery is also located on 18th Street.
So what's exciting? Well. No longer is this little dispatch of pavement, which saddles both Dolores Park and the 17th Street, "Upholstery District" of San Francisco.
Well, we have a new neighborhood on our hands. Please join me in knighting the 18th Street spread between Dolores and Guererro as the "James Beard District" of San Francisco.
YOU'RE NEXT BI-RITE ICE CREAMERY!
2) My always a tastemaker, never a taster tradition continues as two of my favorite hangouts which I can never afford to patron, won James Beard Awards for 2008. The prestigious honor for best chef from California (or Hawaii) went to Craig Stoll, executive and co-owner of Delfina (on 18th Street). Also on the JB Awards list were Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson, owners of Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, as the best pastry chefs or bakers in America. Tartine Bakery is also located on 18th Street.
So what's exciting? Well. No longer is this little dispatch of pavement, which saddles both Dolores Park and the 17th Street, "Upholstery District" of San Francisco.
Well, we have a new neighborhood on our hands. Please join me in knighting the 18th Street spread between Dolores and Guererro as the "James Beard District" of San Francisco.
YOU'RE NEXT BI-RITE ICE CREAMERY!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
San Francisco Values
Wow, Nancy Pelosi throws my kind of parties. I'm having a BBQ this afternoon celebrating many of the same things and I'm hoping that Beto will wear his cutoff yellow tank and cowboy hat.
Yes to Same Sex Marriage!
Yes to Abortions (on demand, and on pay per view)!
Yes to Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants!
I mean, really, what's the alternative to this kind of party. Who wants to have a party full of straight, white people who's ancestor's were uuber euros. And partying with people who don't believe in abortions on demand is a total buzzkill.
I'd love to have a chit-chat with the marketing group that came up with this ad. The whole goal is to pitch to voters that "San Francisco Values" are bad and Kay Barnes is NancePo's bestie, making them both bad. This Kay Barnes vs. Sam Graves is going down in Missouri where I guess a term like "San Francisco Values" is thrown around a lot as a negative. And the three dancing friends in front of the irradescent bar are meant to inhance the negative feelings we're supposed to feel towards San Franciscans, Nancy Pelosi, Kay Barnes, pink tank tops, cowboy hats and cosmopolitans. Oh and also illegal immigrants and gay people. WTF?
If I were living in Missouri, wouldn't my chances of wearing a cowboy hat and sleeveless tank be higher than if I were attending a Kay Barnes fundraiser at NanPo's NorCal estate? If I were living in Missouri wouldn't I just DIE to attend one of those fancy parties where people wearing neon grind against me drinking cosmos and looking like they're having fun fun fun! I don't understand who this ad was for but now that abortions on demand are synonamous with quaffed hair and neon yellow, I'm feeling like chilling at Lime in the Castro this weekend
Monday, March 17, 2008
What July will Bring
Dude, this is going to be so tits, I can't even stand it.
I've always wanted to drive across the country- most specifically, I want to go to every major league baseball stadium. Since I'm not 75 and retired in an RV (yet), I might have to put that on hold - or at least not attempt to drive in Florida or Arizona with no air conditioning.
Monday, March 10, 2008
A Preemptive Breakup
So Fretty-McFretterson here, anguishing over the wait for MFA program acceptances and rejections. After a long haul of self-doubt and pity, I had nowhere else to go except to the bottle...a big bottle of George Costanza.
He's right, I'm the same as him. I have no power, I need "hand" in my relationship with these graduate programs. Accepting a tiny graduate class of nonfiction writers I imagine is a lot like entering a relationship: one must be perceived as desirable. In the academic and publishing world, they'd like you to believe that this has something to do with talent. I believe otherwise. I think, that every issue in the world can be directly linked to the quest for affection and sex. This argument can be expanded but then where would the fun be? The goal for me is to play the same games with these admissions committees that I've learned to play in my sexual relationships- and of course, as a woman who came of age under the banner of Elaine and Jerry, I've turned to Seinfeld to asses the situation.
I have no power, don't you understand, I've got no hand, I need hand!
Meg: Uh, yes hello is this the excellent MFA program that I applied to?
P: Yes.
Meg: I understand you're reviewing my portfolio.
P: Yes.
Meg: Yeah, I'm just calling to say, I am rescinding my application, I don't want to come to your program.
P: What do you mean? Things seemed to be looking good, you were half-way up the list.
Meg: Yeah, I don't think so, we're obviously not a good fit.
P: Not a good fit? What can we do? I can put you to the top of the list, maybe.
Meg: Eh.
P: How about an assistantship? We can guarantee financial aid?
Meg: This is what I'm talking about, clearly we are not-
P: A full ride! Immediate acceptance! Publication! Massages!
Meg: What? I can't hear you!
P: We love you! You're the only student we want. You're talented, we'll do anything for you!
Meg: See, was that so hard?
Final thoughts: A (wo)man without hand is not a (wo)man. And I've got so much hand I'm coming out of my gloves.
He's right, I'm the same as him. I have no power, I need "hand" in my relationship with these graduate programs. Accepting a tiny graduate class of nonfiction writers I imagine is a lot like entering a relationship: one must be perceived as desirable. In the academic and publishing world, they'd like you to believe that this has something to do with talent. I believe otherwise. I think, that every issue in the world can be directly linked to the quest for affection and sex. This argument can be expanded but then where would the fun be? The goal for me is to play the same games with these admissions committees that I've learned to play in my sexual relationships- and of course, as a woman who came of age under the banner of Elaine and Jerry, I've turned to Seinfeld to asses the situation.
I have no power, don't you understand, I've got no hand, I need hand!
Meg: Uh, yes hello is this the excellent MFA program that I applied to?
P: Yes.
Meg: I understand you're reviewing my portfolio.
P: Yes.
Meg: Yeah, I'm just calling to say, I am rescinding my application, I don't want to come to your program.
P: What do you mean? Things seemed to be looking good, you were half-way up the list.
Meg: Yeah, I don't think so, we're obviously not a good fit.
P: Not a good fit? What can we do? I can put you to the top of the list, maybe.
Meg: Eh.
P: How about an assistantship? We can guarantee financial aid?
Meg: This is what I'm talking about, clearly we are not-
P: A full ride! Immediate acceptance! Publication! Massages!
Meg: What? I can't hear you!
P: We love you! You're the only student we want. You're talented, we'll do anything for you!
Meg: See, was that so hard?
Final thoughts: A (wo)man without hand is not a (wo)man. And I've got so much hand I'm coming out of my gloves.
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