Searching for the Holy Grail of Mediocre Spaghetti

To celebrate his return to the blogasphere, yesterday afternoon Bryce Digdug and I had a very early supper at Emmy's Spaghetti Shack in the more inner part of the Outer Mission. At first I thought Bryce might be wanting to go so early for the Blue Hair, er, Blue Plate Specials. Though, since it's located in the south end of the Big Lots Plaza, perhaps they're blue light specials. Regardless, I soon realized Bryce had likely wanted to arrive early to avoid being caught by the paparazzi.

Neither of us had spaghetti and opted for their halibut special which was very tasty. Yelp reviewers had heralded Emily's as "the best place in San Francisco to wait over an hour to be served mediocre spaghetti." So I was a little irked that my meal was very good and came in about 20 minutes.

My theory is that the best way to tell the difference between a provincial city and a world class city is that the former tend to call their restaurants warehouses and the latter prefer to name them shacks. Big Lots, however, is the great equalizer since all people need a place to buy cereal packaged during the Reagan administration and 24 packs of Jolt cola.

Bryce, who gets around the Mission on a John Deere, didn't seem to be at all concerned that he's paying over $6 a gallon for the diesel that keeps him mobile. Perhaps that interactive map in today's New York Times confirms why. Northern Californians have the nation's highest gas prices, but we extend the smallest percentage of our income on fuel. I guess that explains why I've never received that $600 "incentive" check. The White House must have looked at that map and assume I drive a Humvee when I really walk.

The sartorial mood at Emily's is on the casual side, and I noticed Bryce catching quite few glances with his top hat, monocle and ascot. We're a bit more casual over here in la Dreta de Mision, and even I was wearing more informal running shoes.

That didn't diminish our conversation about the avant-garde films currently being screened at SFMOMA. Many of the film makers hail from UC Irvine which is noted for being the Godard-mill of the western hemisphere.

Apparently none of the films feature typeface erotica, but you can find that over on Bryce's new blog.

Bracing ourselves for the gale force winds, we headed up Valencia and passed Omer who was hawking his new duets CD recorded with Frank Chu, Out of This World.

Heading home, I passed the new gym on 24th Street where I saw several men lifting weights. I may need to report this place to the cops since I think that's where people have been training for those strong armed robberies that have been hitting the city lately.

When I came back home, I watched part of Jean Isidore Isou’s Traité de Bave et d’Éternité, a hard-core lettrist film. It contains one scene with an tilde and a semi-colon that I can’t discuss in detail on such a family oriented blog.