We Need More Flags

Once again, my nerdiness is getting in the way of things.
I've been reading a lot about California History lately (as my 4th grade education left much to be be desired) and have learned about all of the flags over the state. For example, did you know that Monterey, at the time the state capital, was captured by the Argentines and held for five days in 1818? No.
Now, a lot of these flags are just badass, so I think we need them back.

Case in point: The Flag of New Spain
Whether white-heat nativists like Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York like it or not, the Southwest is an integral historical part of Latin America. This used to be the flag, and it's fucking badass. It even has a badass name: the Cross of Burgundy. Need I say more?

Saturday Night Blog for October 25

Happy 100th post!

Unfortunately, I was not able to blog about SNL last night because both my cable and internet were down. So, I'm going to have to go over what was available on iTunes, and as such it will be far from comprehensive. Pobre mi.
So here, a full day late, are my thoughts:

1. C-SPAN: This one said what we're all thinking and was a trifle labored, but was OK. However, the writers of SNL seem to have forgotten that there was once a time when opening sketches didn't have to be political.

2. Jon Hamm Monologue: Wham, Hamm, thank you ma'am. Now that requisite joke is out of the way, let's get started. I should say that I have not seen Mad Men, but promise to catch up in the summer, as I am nostalgic for a time when coffee boys could become executives and boning your secretary was standard practice.

3. Trick or Treat: I wasn't sure where this was going, but once it got to the point I loved it. This should totally be a recurring sketch. Hear that, SNL writers? Sex offender Santa would be a hit!

4. Digital Short: Rastafarianism! At first I wasn't sure how good this SNL would be, considering how much they packed in last week, but this short was among the best since Andy Samberg started making them. This also fits into the "funny because it's true" category. Being a college student, especially in San Francisco, there are white rastafarians or "trustafarians" fucking everywhere, and in back home they would easily be confused with the homeless. So this short ranks about even with "The Mirror" and "Young Chuck Norris."

Yay! It's now past midnight. Time for the increasingly weird sketches...

5. Two A-holes at an Ad Agency in the 1960s. The "Two A-holes" concept has just been taken to the next level. I need say nothing more.

6. The Barack Obama Variety Half-hour. I really have no idea what to say about this.

7. Don Draper's Guide to Picking Up Women. Basically, be Don Draper. This was awesome news for me, as I think I have a good name, look good in a suit, and am very good at being mysterious...So long as I don't use women as a sounding board. Note: this was prerecorded, probably by Jorma Taccone, and is the last time Amy Poehler will appear as a cast member. So long, Ameleh.
And on that note, we turn to the lonely, lonely man that is Seth Meyers...

8. Weekend Update: Robo-Call= weak sauce. The robotic voice was unnecessary. Perhaps instead, Forte could have lip-synched to a pre-recorded message, though the ending was alright.
Bill Hader was great again as Ralph Nader, down to the accent and weird pronunciations. I was also kind of shocked to find out that Ralph Nader is, in fact, older than John McCain.
In last week's excitement over the appearance of two recurring WU commentators, I failed to remember Nicholas Fehn, who appeared tonight and actually got out a complete sentence! Though I have the sneaking suspicion that Fred Armisen is really playing himself.

9. Jon Hamm's John Ham: Finally, a follow-up to Peter Sarsgaard's Sars Guards. This is so weird it's awesome, even though Mr. Hamm is clearly reading cards.

10. Finger in Butts: not very clever, but startlingly short.

Oh wait, It's not over.

Okay, it's over.

Overall, I take away no points. The Digital Short and the Sex Offender sketch each deserve double points. The ham on a roller also gets double points for sheer weirdness, and the Mad Men-oriented sketches each get a point. The main problem with this episode is that Hamm is too frequently playing himself or his MM character, Don Draper.
Grade: B

Tune in next week, when Ben Affleck hosts, and Barack Obama will likely make a cameo. And this just in: the musical guest for November 15 will be FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS!

~MP~

Insomnia

I could have slept tonight, but I decided not to and apparently it stuck. When I think of insomnia, my mind goes right to the bizarre intro to the song "Lightning Strikes" by The Clash; a random clip from a super-late night rasta talk show on the legendary WBAI. But being up so long makes you ask yourself a lot of questions, the kind that have no answer but could start a serious debate. This is what I've got so far:

1. Have we reached the point where it's okay to refer to Colin Firth as a sweater enthusiast?

2. What would a Wes Anderson gangster movie be like?

3. If you try to start a conversation by saying something so monumentally stupid that it makes a total stranger avoid you, should you obsess over it?

4. Why is the internet FAIL when I am the only one on?

5. Am I fit to answer a phone call at 3 in the morning?

6. Should I get a job? A real job?

The answers are respectively: yes, awesome, no, shitty service overall, varies depending on blood sugar, probably.

I Break my Silence on SNL

I've gotta do this. I'm a big fan of SNL, especially the current cast (Bill and Fred are super-awesome), and it was a childhood dream of mine to be a cast member; so from now on I will give my thoughts on the show, starting with tonight. Also, I've given up on Heroes, and need something new to be a hardcore fan of.

1. Intro- I loved the inclusion of Mark Wahlberg, giving me the impression that his vendetta against Andy Samberg was a gag all along (a la "Who Made Huckabee?") but Sarah Palin was SUPER CREEPY and gave me hardcore weirdness.

2. Josh Brolin Dialogue- Not much to say here, but there have been a lot of guest appearances lately. I miss the days when Gerald Ford would awkwardly utter the opening intro.

3. MacGruber- I was so happy to see a new one of these, for the first time in what seems like years. It was weirdly topical, which I thought was risky, but it turned out being really funny. I've had many "What the (KA-BOOM!)?!?" moments.

4. Surprise Lady- Kristen Wiig is starting to piss me off, but this sketch was a lot funnier than the original Surprise Lady sketch. But I wasn't totally paying attention to this sketch because I was writing the summaries for the other sketches.
By the way, no commercials?

5. MacGruber- Not a whole lot to add to what I said before, except Josh Brolin looked like just like Neil Young in that wig.P.S. There's the commercials! Seventeen minutes straight, though. Weird.
P.P.S. Brooke Shields is also starting to piss me off with these Volkswagen commercials.

6. The Suze Orman Show- Suze! This whole episode is like a big trip down memory lane. I should have brought a flamboyant jacket. And maybe our expectations of the hosts have been lowered since the 70's, but Josh Brolin seems really good. (I also thought James Franco and Anne Hathaway were really good. I missed the Anna Faris episode.)

7. Mark vs. Andy- Yeah, this was definitely a giant setup, even before the talking to animals sketch.Say hi to your motha for me.

8. Apparently, southern rockers love pregnant chicks. And Josh Brolin is a lot heavier than he looks, because his chair was not supposed to fall apart under him.

9. MacGruber- This is a new and weird dimension of MacGruber, and I'm frightened.

10. Adele- It started with Joss Stone, and apparently there are white women all over the place who sound black. Not a whole lot to say here, I didn't particularly like or dislike the music.
Note: It's a rule of thumb that the later in the show a sketch is, the weirder it is; these are intended for more hardcore fans like me. For those in doubt, I give you three words: Zip. Zop. Zookie.
11. Weekend Update- Tim Calhoun!!! Hockey dad, soccer uncle, donkey kong best friend, great lover (?!), giant flag pin-wearer, hater of baby dentists. It seems like he's channeling Demetri Martin with his wordplay and visual gags.
And who could follow up Tim Calhoun but Jean K. Jean. The writers were not fucking off this week. JKJ mentioned that he lives "up" in Marseilles, where's it's especially cold, which makes no sense; but I'll lighten up. In-cre-ible!

With--- oh, God. Not Her. Not Her. Not Her. Good Lord this is awkward. I don't care how badass Amy Poehler is rapping, but Jesus. No. No. No. NO!

Commercial Break- Oh, that was unpleasant. And it was going so well until then. I'm guessing the only way to get Sarah Palin to show up in the intro was to jerk her off spectacularly. Such is life.

12. Fart face- This sketch has a real Monty Python vibe about it. Will and Bill got a surprising amount of mileage out of two words. What do you think are the chances we'll see these guys again?

Commercial Break- I don't know why Barack Obama is spending money on airtime in the Bay, but the campaign probably knows that I like feeling included.

13. Narc School. This is definitely a John Lutz-penned sketch. It's weird, but in a good way. The point being that Narcs are really bad actors. We never had narcs at Catholic School, but I'd like some stories of awkwardness.
P.S. Case Wilson = hot teacher?

14. Readytrade.com. Sell, sell, sell. The SNL writers are starting to overstretch the economy thing; this probably should have been cut.

15. New York Underground- Bill Hader was great as one of those hipster Nic Harcourt types. I'm not totally sure this wasn't a Harcourt parody (the shaky cinematography, the obscure artist). I'm going to guess we'll see more of Trevor Dix in the future.

16. Adele (again)- more jazzy, inoffensive, slightly pretensious sounds--- exactly the kind of thing Nic Harcourt would like.

17. Fall foliage- Josh Brolin acts overly sentimental about Autumn leaves in a way that would weird Craig Nicholls out, and it actually works, but the epilogue is kind of weird.
P.S. In a google search of "Autumn Shade 3," this very blog appears as number three. Scoooore!

So, let's recap:

One point for the Wahlberg tie-in/mindfuck. Turns out he was alright after all.
One point for Kristen Wiig making one of her tired characters better.
One point for Josh Brolin's Neil Youngedness.
One point for FART FACE!
A point each for the return of four awesome characters.

A point off for Palin-induced awkwardness
A point off for an unnecessary economic joke
I would normally give a point off for the lack of a digital short or cartoon, but I'm willing to overlook it tonight, as that would be overstuffing an episode, and who knows when there'll be a dry spell?

Grade: B

~MP~

Pro-American Areas of America/Anti-American Areas

20 top Pro-American Cities:

Houston
Phoenix
San Diego
San Antonio
Dallas
Jacksonville
Indianapolis
Columbus
Charlotte
Fort Worth
Louisville
Oklahoma City
Tucson
Mesa
Kansas City
Virginia Beach
Omaha
Tulsa
Arlington

20 top Anti-American Cities:

New York*
Los Angeles*
Chicago*
Philadelphia
San Jose
Detroit
San Francisco*
Austin
Memphis
Baltimore
El Paso
Milwaukee
Boston*
Seattle
Nashville
Denver
Washington
Las Vegas
Portland
Atlanta

*these cities are not just anti-American, but also super-duper evil and pose a serious threat to our values and/or democracy. Especially Chicago.

Also, the cool cities are the ones you're meant to hate.

Alum Rock-Cupertino

I always know what to do in a mass transit-type situation.
During a trip to San Jose last summer, I noticed a somewhat overlooked transit corridor linking Downtown, Burbank, Valley Fair, and the Infinite Loop. I later discovered that such a line is in fact under study. (The Red One):


View Larger Map

Regional Consultantship, Please!
~MP~

The Search for Dave Koller's Lookalike Concludes...

The Search for Dave Koller's Lookalike Begins...

There's a guy at SFSU who looks just like the producer for The Young Turks, Dave Koller. I promised Cenk I would find him. The results have been less than perfect, but certainly entertaining:

Life in music-Part 2

It started with the Dandy Warhols. If not for them, boy bands would still roaming the earth.

2000
Looking back, it's hard to believe that those guys were only cool for one full year. Meanwhile, The Hives broke out with their second album Veni Vidi Vicious, and the British press were hyping San Francisco's latest act, the awesomely named Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

2001
It's no coincidence that Stone Temple Pilots last album arrived the same year as The Strokes' first. Did you know that Galileo died the same year Isaac Newton was born? Exactly. While Shangri-La Dee Da floundered, Is This It defied all expectations, so much that its risque original artwork had to be replaced. The Vines first got mass produced this year when their cover of the Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping" was put on the soundtrack for the movie I Am Sam.
This is where we last left off.

2002
Believe it or not, MTV was still playing music videos in 2002, and they LOVED The Vines. And as I only watched MTV when "Get Free" was playing, I loved them as well. In 2004, I would fall in love with them yet again, but would not buy any of their music until I was nearly 18.
On the other hand, 2002 was fairly uneventful. Foo Fighters made a terrible fourth album, and Tom Morello and Chris Cornell formed Audioslave, which was good, but not a breakthrough.

2003
I. Believe. In. A. Thing. Called. Love.
End of story.

2004
This was a big year for hip-hop. Black Eyed Peas went mainstream, Usher proved that shouting "Yeah!" is in fact catchy, and all of America learned to shake it like a polaroid picture.
It was also a terrific year for rock, as Modest Mouse reinvented itself and Franz Ferdinand made art-rock a presence that could not be ignored.
I also lost my virginity this year. It was good, in a horrible kind of way.

2005
Aesthetically, 2005 was merely a more stupid version of the previous year. This was the year that saw "Candy Shop" and The Pussycat Dolls. Jesus Christ, dude. But it was not without its high points: Franz Ferdinand kept up and remained popular, Foo Fighters redeemed themselves with In Your Honor, and right at the end, Gorillaz came to America, foreshadowing a new British invasion.

2006
Arctic Monkeys and the Kooks released their first albums on the same day, spearheading the aforementioned invasion, while Gnarls Barkley considered the possibility that they were crazy. The Vines and The Strokes made their worst albums, and subsequently vanished (but not forever). AFI made a surprisingly enjoyable album, thus alienating their biggest fans.
Meanwhile, Brandon Flowers tried to be Springsteen, Chris Martin tried to be Bono, Incubus made a rock opera, and the Jonas Brothers came out of the Disney Vault. The results weren't pretty.

2007
It was all about fun. And depravity. The Hives got experimental (and sounded good doing it), Velvet Revolver got down to business (and dumped Scott Weiland), Beck had a timebomb, Modest Mouse got car troubles, and the Kooks put out an entire album's worth of singles. 2008 isn't over yet, so I can't look back on it, so we'll just have to see.
~s~

New South Wales