On The Weekend.

It’s funny to read live reviews of ‘reunion’ gigs of Led Zeppelin and Portishead in the same night. I’m not a big fan of either band, but the spectacle is something to behold. Of course, Halou always gets compared to Led Zeppelin, so that was interesting…

Friday, we saw the ‘anti-Christian diatribe’ that is the Golden Compass. Crybabies aside, it’s a pretty safe Hollywood reading of a Hitchens-lite piece of fiction. Funny how less than 2 years after 9/11 you can do a fictional film based on that REAL event, but 2000+ years after Christ, you still can’t touch that subject. I’m fine with substituting the anti-God message with an anti-Bush (or Huckabee or whoever) one if that would be subject to less protest and controversy. Works for me (and, hopefully, 51% of the US of A).

Saturday was a big Napa thing with a lot of craziness and a couple 2+ hour stops. Keller’s new temporary ‘dive’ Ad Hoc is totally insane. Only one dish served all night - the culinary equivalent to ‘In Rainbows’. What’s amazing is how when you’re looking like you’re finished, they’re ready to serve you more. Just like mom would do. Amazing. Our dear friend Josh hooked us up with some bottles to enjoy with the meal and his obscenely good Jacquelynn Cab was a perfect match for Keller’s 48-hour slow-cooked short ribs. Hopefully, Parker won’t know what hit him when he tastes that juice…

On the way home, we swap Mormon near-miss stories. Now, that’s fun. Especially when one’s belly is full of Napa’s finest. If there is a God and we had got in an accident that night, that would have been a great meeting at the gates of heaven/hell. I would have still been unintelligible. Even drunk, though, I couldn’t bring up the Octopus video with God. That would just be awkward - and I haven’t even seen it.

Sunday, we caught the SF Symphony’s annual Christmas concert with the kiddies. Such a worthy tradition. The besequined fabulousness that was the finale was just perfect San Francisco and the line ‘Don we now our gay apparel’ so apt and applause-worthy. The Folsom Street fair meets the Nutcracker. I’ll buy tickets to that every time.

Count’s birthday later that evening. What can you say about the Tonga room. Whether full or empty, it is a striking setting. Their cocktails are named as flamboyantly as they are flavored and the majority are either served in a hollowed out coconut or with a half-moon sized pineapple wedge impaled on the side of the flouncy-shaped glass. My wife posed with a randy Santa and I did my Marilyn dance for Count as I left. Rebecca grabs me by the collar in her not-so-subtle ‘let’s go’ maneuver. I was just getting started.

RYAN