'Bred Crumbs

The liberation of Hayes Valley forges ahead.

Background for non-locals: The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake severely damaged a spur of elevated highway called the Central Freeway. Over the next few years, most of the freeway was pulled down, and the neighborhood that was most in the shadow of the freeway, Hayes Valley, began to prosper. After a decade of delay and debate, voters finally approved demolishing the rest of the Central Freeway, to be replaced with a ground-level boulevard. To the delight of the neighborhood, the removal of the lingering stretch of freeway began this month. This weekend, San Francisco's main thoroughfare, Market Street, was partly closed as the progressive demolition finally reached Hayes Valley.

The key devices of destruction today were two giant hammer thingies that repeatedly pecked at the overpass like angry, steroid-bloated chickens, crumbling it bit by deadly falling bit. I imagined they were competing. My money's on yellow. It's not pretty, but it knows how to get the job done.

Some debris was not allowed the dignity of falling.

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Brace yourself for television to become even stupider, because here comes Spike TV (a k a the 63rd re-marketing of TNN), proclaiming itself the "first" network for men. Not counting ESPN, of course. And, oh, everything else.

We are promised Spike TV will be "aggressive"* and "unapologetically male."

That's probably not what they mean, is it?

·  ·  ·

* Uh-oh! Watch out, Lifetime!

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Filing taxes is easy. Filing the tax-software rebates is hard.

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And so, after I finally got around to watching it on DVD, The Royal Tenenbaums joins that small cluster of movies that are beloved by almost every wise and trusted person I know, but leave me going, um, what?

Here are two generous things I can think of to say about The Royal Tenenbaums:

1. Perhaps never before has an outline of a movie been so lovingly filmed.

2. I think I didn't like The Royal Tenenbaums because of the same gene that keeps me from being able to listen to Morrissey or Belle & Sebastian.

So what's in the baffling-esteem club other than this movie? Well, American Beauty is lodged there so firmly it makes me afraid to even try Six Feet Under. That tiger/dragon thing of a few years back would be there if everyone who praised it hadn't forgotten about it by now. (Haven't you?) And that holiest of holy, Fight Club, is there – insert gasp here – but with an asterisk: I can't say I completely hated Fight Club because I haven't been able to make it past the one-hour mark in trying to watch it.

And yes, I know the twist.

At least one more movie is in this group, but it is such a universally worshipped piece of celluloid, such a strangely unquestioned "classic," that naming it may cause those few people who regard my opinions to hastily disavow any knowledge of my existence. So, I'll just provide my standard description of the movie: it's one hour of drawn-out prologue followed by two hours of reprehensible people slaughtering each other.

No, it's not Megaforce. Good guess, though.

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