Some Things Are Better as Remakes

I Love Honey Nut Cheerios, Just Don't Flake Out on Me

How did I manage to go this long not knowing about Kalup Linzy and the All My Churen series? It's so wonderfully subversive and fitting with the upcoming DVD release of Elevator Girls in Bondage from a few generations earlier. I may have to visit New Orleans soon. This is ART.

Interactive Wednesday: Cadillac Competition

Not that I enjoy being competitive...hell, I love being competitive. It juices me up every time. Our beloved Tugboat Dave posted a really cool photo recently of a Cadillac spray painted purple as an example of the cultural superiority of New Orleans. I'll admit that I was impressed and tip my hat to the many wonders of the Crescent City. However, I submit our local variation on this theme and dare others to top it.

A purple Cadillac is pretty impressive, but can anyone top one with an observation deck? Bring it on, baby, bring it on!

Daddy Don't Walk So Fast

It's a week of tributes and mentions for Junk Thief. Perhaps he's falling into the role of junk elder and can expect to be inducted into the Junk Hall of Fame soon. Or at least he should be awarded a star on Turk Street.

Tugboat Dave has posted a cool little video that he said was inspired in part by Junk Thief and his motto of "It doesn't have to make sense. It just has to take up space." Junk Thief doesn't recall having said that, but it's not bad. How many beers into the evening was that quote made, Dave?

In the meantime, just call Junk Thief Papito de Basura from here on out.

Tawdry

As a site noted for extreme good taste and elegance, the editorial team at Junk Thief had trouble meeting this week's Tugboat Dave photo challenge: Tawdry. We think that word describes a paint color that's sort of in between salmon and putty. That color was featured when Architectural Digest gave us a 12 page spread.

No Feelings, But Senses for Sale

I have heard from more than one reliable source that there is a restaurant called Feelings on Charles Street in New Orleans. Now before you start laughing and saying that "Feelings" is the worst song ever written, go back and watch Nina Simone's spine tingling reworking of that tune that plumbs its modest lyrics for emotions you never knew you had.
We don't have a Feelings in San Francisco, but we did have a Senses that is now for sale. This sort of Basque restaurant at 1152 Valencia was preceded by the unfortunately named Watergate, one of the first attempts in the late 1990s to bring finer dining to Valencia that has since become more common. Once Watergate closed, they reopened as...Watercress. Most hilariously, they didn't bother to take down the old sign but just put awnings over it with the new name. A, get it, new Watergate cover-up. I wished they'd followed it with Monica's.

I'm sort of pissed that Firecracker has closed on Valencia and will now be the third Indian restaurant within a block. Mind you, I love South Asian restaurant as much as anyone, but I will miss Firecracker's feel of being an opium den for recreational users, as if it were a place a dowager from Atherton might escape to let her hair down. And I really dug their yin-yang prawns.

Anyway, here are some names I've long toyed around with for trendy restaurants:
* iPod, uJayne Mansfield
* kNeebraska
* Susan Anton's Suddenly Salad!
* Feelings West
* East Dakota/West Dakota
* Gregg's Eggs
* Fred's Fried Slophouse
* The Russian T-Room...Too
* The Gravy-on-a-Stick Warehouse
* Carlos' Cuy-town
* Just Pho U
* The Chupalines Junction
* The French Coin-op Laundry

Interactive Monday Assignment - Make Mine Male!

Happy MLK Day everyone. I hope you're all off work and thinking about how LBJ contributed to your civil liberties.

Since it's technically a holiday, I thought I'd give you a slightly more complex assignment since you may have a little more time to work on it.

Write an introduction -- a sentence, paragraph, headline, teaser, whatever -- to one of the three cover stories. If you choose to write an entire article, you might get a special little something from Junk Thief.

Since there is a pretty large circle of followers down in New Orleans, I hope some of them write about those shocking Mardis Gras parties as the season is imminent. You don't have to be male to fulfill this assignment, but I think you have to have certain fondness for them to do it justice.