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Which TV game show would you dominate?
Before we get to today's topic, I have to applaud my friend Zoe. Zoe, who used to work with Phil Bronstein, announced last year that she was joining the U.S. Army. I've always been an enthusiastic patriot, and applauded the decision, but was still a little worried. To make basic training even more challenging, she doesn't like sports and she's a vegan. And I just couldn't see Lou Gossett Jr. in "An Officer and a Gentleman" getting behind Tofurkey.
lenpenzo.com
Survey says? I would suck at "Family Feud."
But Zoe kicked ass in basic, sent life-affirming updates throughout and I'm pretty sure she's a general now. So how am I going to reward this selfless service to our country? By stealing the great topic she introduced on her Twitter feed this week:
If you could be on any TV game show, which one would you dominate?
This becomes a complicated question with a lot of variables. Do you have dumb friends? You might not want to choose "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Are you a Kardashian? Your chances of winning "Family Feud" are incredibly slim. Do you have really short arms? "Wheel of Fortune" would at best be a strain, and could be impossible to play.
I thought about this over the past 48 hours, and made my choice, which is below. For discussion purposes, I'm deciding that any game show past or present qualifies. If you want the late Charles Nelson Reilly to be your "$20,000 Pyramid" partner, go for it. You may also choose your era/host if the show has been on for a few decades. (My "Family Feud" host choice would be: 1. Richard Dawson; 2. John O'Hurley; 3. Anybody else except Louie Anderson; 4. Louie Anderson. Except I would never pick "Family Feud," for reasons stated below.)
Your go-to TV game show in the comments. Read More 'Which TV game show would you dominate?' »
| January 20 2011 at 06:34 AM
Home Alone: What do you do when the kids are gone?
I'm resigned to the fact that there's no way I can bring this topic up without things getting extremely juveline fast. So surprise me. Let's see if we can get through this post and the ensuing comments without 57 references to masturbation. I'm not hopeful ...
Maybe not all of my tomorrows ...
I love time spent with my entire family, and I love hanging out with my wife. But, with apologies to all of the above, I also appreciate those little three and four hour blocks of time by myself in the house -- when my wife is running errands or taking the kids to her parents' place.
As they drive away, I always feel a little guilty at first. I often begin by straightening up -- conditioned from having children to constantly multitask and get household chores done in whatever sliver of spare time is available. But after about 20 minutes of that, I gain my senses ("Who am I trying to impress? No one is watching!") and temporarily revert back to my 25-year-old self. Life slows down a little bit, my confidence grows and the couch starts looking a lot more comfotable. There's almost never time to drink five Lucky Lagers and play Tecmo Bowl, but I do get to cut loose a little.
My alone time activities are below. Yours in the comments ... Read More 'Home Alone: What do you do when the kids are gone?' »
| January 19 2011 at 07:02 AM
The worst movie you watched in 2010
There was a lot to talk about during the Golden Globes last night. Was Paul Giamatti drunk? Is Sandra Bullock doing a Cher biopic? Why was January Jones wearing a dress made out of Red Vines? But the biggest baffler was the inclusion of "The Tourist" in one of the best picture categories. This is a movie that scored in the 30s on Metacritic. Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp could be in a muffler commercial together, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association would nominate them for eight awards ...
Associated Press
Pretentiousness rises from the ashes.
It's probable that "The Tourist" is on a lot of your worst movie of the year lists. I have even lower standards than that. If a motion picture has a couple of hot actors and a few explosions, it can hold my interest and entertain me on a superficial level. Unlike the worst films I watched in 2010, which were painful from beginning to end.
This list isn't definitive. I reviewed less bad mainstream movies and more art films and documentaries in 2010, and didn't seek out many of the losers. (I still watch most of the good movies because of my membership in the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, but there's nothing in the bylaws that says I have to screen "Cats and Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.")
But I still managed to find myself in a theater at least a half dozen times this year, occasionally jabbing myself with the pen to stave off death from boredom. Below are my three worst movies of 2010. Please add your pick to the comments ... Read More 'The worst movie you watched in 2010' »
| January 17 2011 at 07:32 AM
Never mind the Bullock's: A tribute to Fashion Island in San Mateo
Steve Castillo/Chronicle 1994
This one might seem like kind of a stretch. Fashion Island wasn't exactly the Mall of America. It wasn't event the Monroeville Mall. Its sole distinguising feature was a nine-pointed white tent that housed the anchor Bullock's store. And Fashion Island existed from 1981 to 1996. That's only 4 in mall years.
But there was a magical quality about the crappy old failure of a retail center that makes me sing Kris Kristofferson lyrics when I drive by the demolished site. "I'd trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday. Playing Karate Champ in the Gold Miiiiiiine." (I paraphrase.)
The Fashion Island tent, easily visible from the San Mateo Bridge as you drove west on Highway 92, wasn't exactly the Golden Gate Bridge or Coit Tower. But it was a landmark in a region that was sorely lacking one. The mall itself was forgettable, with a confusing layout that made you always feel like you were lost. But it was functional, containing everything a pre-teen or teen could want, including a ice skating rink, arcade (the Gold Mine ... later the Tilt at the Island), General Cinema multiplex, Happy Donuts, Orange Julius, a Musicland and a Wherehouse, and a B. Dalton Bookseller.
I miss the Fashion Island mall as much as anything from my childhood growing up in the area. More thoughts are below. Yours in the comments ... Read More 'Never mind the Bullock's: A tribute to Fashion Island in San Mateo' »
| January 14 2011 at 07:31 AM
More paperboy redux: A note from my old boss
Thanks to everyone for checking out my Paper Route Redux video on Wednesday and passing it around. After worrying about it and delaying the release for nearly a month, I'm happy to declare the experiment a success. I've received dozens of wonderful e-mails from former Chronicle paper carriers and other well-wishers. I look forward to pouring a cocktail and giving them my full attention in a couple of days. Please keep your paper route stories coming!
The most mind-blowing message by far came from the man who was my boss in 1983 ... and still works for the Chronicle. Here's his e-mail:
I added the red arrow.
Hi Peter,
I just saw your paper route video. What a great story.
I actually hired you. I was the Area Advisor and I contracted you for the route, my signature is on the 'Parent Consent' agreement, and Mike Shores, who was the Home Delivery Supervisor at the time, signed the contract.
Your throwing technique was OK, a little rusty, but not bad.
I wish you the best with your story and hope you get many responses!
Thanks for the flashback!
Don Leary
San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate
State Circulation Supervisor
Thanks for the charitable assessment of my throwing abilities and congratulations on an amazing career! (Don told me he's been at the Chronicle for more than 40 years.) I hope I can buy you a beer some time in 2011, since I was about a decade too young to do it when we worked together.
Don's signature is highlighted in the image to the right. I've scanned in the full contract below. Read More 'More paperboy redux: A note from my old boss ' »
| January 13 2011 at 06:32 AM
Paper Route Redux: Delivering my old Chronicle route
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In addition to working as a San Francisco Chronicle reporter and critic for the past decade, I was a Chronicle paperboy from 1983 to 1985. In an attempt to celebrate the newspaper's past while embracing its multimedia future, I decided to deliver my old Chronicle route one more time.
The greater goal is to make Paper Route Redux into a series, as a vehicle to tell stories about interesting Bay Area people. If you're a former San Francisco Chronicle paperboy or papergirl, and you'd like to deliver your old route, send an e-mail to phartlaub@sfchronicle.com. Let me know about your old Chronicle route, your ties to the Bay Area, what you do now and anything else you think is relevant. Include a photo of yourself past and present if you'd like -- or send me a link to a YouTube video explaining why you'd like to participate. I'm hoping to shoot Episode 2 later this month. If we get enough e-mails, I'll speak to my editors about compiling some of the stories into a feature for the newspaper.
I'm looking forward to your responses. More on Paper Route Redux: Episode 1 below ... Read More 'Paper Route Redux: Delivering my old Chronicle route' »
| January 12 2011 at 05:12 AM
State of The Poop address ...
Starting early Wednesday morning, you'll be seeing the occasional video/multimedia project on The Poop.
wikimedia.org
This looks like fun ...
I've been working in my spare time with a very talented videographer, and we're ready to debut our first video. I'm not going to say any more, except that it involves my old paper route, a handheld camera, The Time's "Ice Cream Castles" and duct tape. It's going to be really fun or an epic career-killing disaster. Either way, you'll probably want to check it out.
Writing stories for the San Francisco Chronicle remains my full-time job and priority, so these videos are going to arrive at a trickle. I'm not especially comfortable on camera, I say "Umm" a lot and everything seems to involve about 600 takes.
But it also feels kind of exciting, in a just-joined-the-high school A/V Club kind of way. I have several fun ideas for video series and one-time projects, and I'm looking forward to sharing a few of them as time permits in 2011.
Three more notes about the blog ... Read More 'State of The Poop address ...' »
| January 11 2011 at 04:32 PM
What posters did you have on your bedroom wall?
One of the favorite things about my parents: They saved all my stuff. As previously reported, the moment I left for college, my parents covered my room in Laura Ashley. But they neatly boxed up my possessions, which they've been handing back to me in slow increments for the past 22 years. My life is a never-ending time capsule.
www.beliefnet.com
Was this on your wall?
My mother will drop by to see the kids, and bring a box full of letters I kept from girlfriends I went out with in my teens. Or my father will bring a small leather lockbox filled with my old Army men. Some of these gifts are themed. When I became a reporter at the Chronicle, my father sent me the 1983 services contract between myself and the San Francisco Newspaper Agency (on pink paper!) for the Chronicle paper route I had in the mid-1980s.
One of the more recent hand-offs was a rolled-up collection of posters -- held together by a rubberband that disintegrated in my hands before I could pull it off.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Some posters from your room," my father said, as if he pulled them down last week. Inside was a perfectly preserved representation of what my room looked like in 1988.
Some highlights are below. Please inventory the posters that were on the wall of your childhood room in the comments. If you know where they are now, tell us.
(My posters tend to skew toward the teen years, mostly because I had a sweet wallpaper mural of a sunset on my wall in my pre-teens, and wasn't allowed to put up posters until I was maybe 14. If you had this on your wall when you were 7, please include that as well.)
Read More 'What posters did you have on your bedroom wall?' »| January 11 2011 at 06:11 AM
Peter Yates appreciation: An innovator with an eye for detail
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The passing of Peter Yates, who died on Sunday in London, was a sad loss for cinema. In addition to his huge role in creating the famous "Bullitt" chase scene through the streets of San Francisco, he directed "The Dresser" and the exceptional "Breaking Away."
Yates directed action with a flair for innovation. You could see it in "Breaking Away" -- the scene where Dave races the semi truck is wonderful -- and especially in the classic "Bullitt" chase sequence. I wrote a magazine-style piece about that scene several years ago, interviewing as many living witnesses to the chase as I could find. (Yates was the one that got away.) Cinematographer William Fraker said he and Yates conceived the scene in a Hollywood restaurant called Martoni's, and it was Yates' idea to film the scene at full speed. Before "Bullitt," chase scenes were filmed at slower speeds, and then the film was edited faster in post-production.
Read More 'Peter Yates appreciation: An innovator with an eye for detail' »| January 10 2011 at 12:15 PM
What's the dumbest thing you did in 2010?
"The dumbest thing you did ..." is actually a series started last year by Kelly Mills. This part of my 2011 initiative to get her to write for The Poop again. I'm going to keep stealing her ideas until she starts contributing posts out of pure frustration. (If that doesn't work, I'm going to kidnap her dog.)
burielectric.com
At least I didn't get electricuted ...
Looking back at my own dumbest things I did in 2010, I'm both embarrassed and satisfied. There were a lot of idiotic acts to choose from, but very little collateral damage to the public at large. I figure it's a good year if I'm pretty much the only one who suffered from my stupidity.
Last year was a year of sleep deprivation in my household, and I think it shows in my list. Two of these mistakes wouldn't have happened if I was averaging more than five hours of sleep per night. I think it's also notable that only one of the items involved damage to myself. During the typical year, physical injury is the entire list.
My dumbest things I did in 2010 are below. Yours in the comments.
(You can write what you want, including the ever-popular "the dumbest thing I did is read your column" response. But I'm hoping that people keep this kind of light. If you robbed an Old Navy or ran over a crosswalk full of old ladies or cheated on your wife while she was eight months pregnant with twins, you might want to skip the comments and tell it to your counselor/priest/fellow inmates.) Read More 'What's the dumbest thing you did in 2010?' »
| January 07 2011 at 06:10 AM
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