Screaming Eyes, Ice Screaming

I make no apologies for having a great love for Eddie Cantor. His 1934 opus Kid Millions tops both versions of Willie Wonka in my book. It's amazing that three strip technocolor looked this amazing in that year, and even more odd to see Ethel Merman looking so young and girlish.

Interactive Thursday: Calling All (s)Creamers!

Although he will be cutting back on it this summer to drop 175 pounds in order to be on hand for the winter equinox (his favorite holiday) festivities in Nuuk, Junk Thief has noticed ice cream coming up a lot in blog entries by Mouse, Allan at Mission/Mission and What I'm Seeing. So which is the best?

That's such a subjective question, but here is a round up of places that are (mostly) in the Mission. All three of the above bloggers mentioned Mitchell's. There appear to be creameries of the same name in both San Francisco and Cleveland. As far as we know there is no connection between the two (or the Mitchell Brothers' O'Farrell Theater or Joni Mitchell if you are that obsessive), but our Mitchell's down in the Dirty 30 or (as we am now calling it) SOCC (South of Cesar Chavez) is beloved by many.

Of course the Saint Francis Fountain which is closer than a stone's throw away from the JunkPlex used to make their own ice cream but now relies on Mitchell's for their trademark malts and shakes.
Decidedly more offbeat but with a loyal following is the Bombay Ice Creamery on Valencia which definitely offers more than the standard Rocky Road, and you can step into the adjacent bazaar to pick up a sari or Ganesh.

Junk Thief's favorite, however, is Pollyann out in the avenues which is about as old as Mitchell's but has taken a more offbeat approach since being bought by the Wu family in 1985 when they introduced lichee, taro, red bean (Junk Thief's absolute favorite) and other flavors. Author Andrew Sean Greer's recent book The Story of a Marriage makes mention of the original owners' signature "Suicide" which brought in every possible syrup and topping back in the 1950s. Oddly, we are able to get many of their current products at the Walgreen's in my neighborhood.

That's merely the tip of the ice cream cone, and we've not even touched the gelato shops in town. So, what's your favorite. Of course, Junk Thief will be holding back for now and will just put sage drops on ice cubes and pretend he's at Pollyann for now.

So, what's your favorite?

Bamboo, Paint and Red Bean

"Another long exhausting day, another thousand dollars... "

JunkThief is not in the habit of quoting Sondheim songs, especially not that one, but it sure described this weekend. Not that he didn't buy anything he regrets, but it just sort of kept building like a wave. The weekend ended up with around 15 DVDs, a good sign that there should be a moratorium on rentals or purchase until the 40-45 yet to be watched discs are viewed. No particular theme but a range of recent releases at $8-9 to rarities and oddities. Especially encouraging was coming across House of Bamboo, a somewhat obscure American noir shot in color in Japan by Samuel Fuller. Besides fascinating, never to be seen again shots of mid-1950s Tokyo and a homo-erotic under-current, there is a fairly major part by spy/socialite/politician/talk show host Shirley Yamaguchi. Her performance is not that great, but she has been such an infamous character I've known about for so long that it was great to see her.

Also long overdue was Paint Your Wagon, the best bad musical set in the wild west with Mormon overtones. Expect to hear a remix of Lee Marvin's xlassic rendition of Wandering Star coming soon.

JunkThief loves to purchase but hates to shop. Thus he typically grabs things quickly, brings them home and sorts things out with whatever he's left to deal with. Thus he ends up with a lot of junk. JunkThief used to take the same approach with men but has tried to be more mindful about that these days. "J" has encouraged him to adopt a nifty yellow cat named Henry, and he has not ruled it out, but he knows mixing his 18-year-old tabby with a new border probably would not work. He seems to be taking the same approach to both men and cats.

A long planned pilgrimage finally happened today. JunkThief has always been less than enthusiastic about the usual sweet, high fat ice creams on the market but loves cardamon, red bean, taro and other flavors. So after years of wanting to go to the main venue of PollyAnn Ice Cream out on Noriega, he finally made the long trek out there. Was that Singapore he saw on the horizon? Half gallon containers of red and green bean! Imagine the excitement. They of course, have 500 flavors available and have much more going for them than the famed Mitchell's Ice Cream.

Driving up 19th Avenue is always traumatic for inner city driver JunkThief, and forgetting that today was Bay to Breakers day was not pleasent.

Editorial Note: Some readers have pointed out that several posts on this site have mixed first and third person. JunkThief has noted that and will try to avoid slipping into the "I-character" mode when speaking of JunkThief in the third person.