How did you spend your time BaconCamp?

Published by Harmon on May 13th, 2010 in IRONY

 


With its many militant vegans and anti-meatists, San Francisco might seem like an odd place to hold an event called BaconCamp. But when pork enthusiasts gathered here for the second year in a row to devour all things bacon, Asylum knew we needed to be on hand to take in the action — literally.

And by “all things bacon,” we mean it. We’re talking bacon loaf cakes, bacon-wrapped meatloaf, bacon fruit salad, and maple-bacon macaroons. In short, it was bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, and more flippin’ bacon.

The extravaganza was held last weekend in a cramped warehouse in the heart of San Francisco. As participants presented their bacon-infused dishes on a small stage, attendees were treated to that oh-so-familiar sizzling-pork aroma. You know the smell.

But BaconCamp is not a spectator sport. Every person who showed up was encouraged to dig in and sample the 33 different entries into the competition as three “American Idol”–type judges sampled and rated each dish. Pork-belly culinary creativity abounded, and went well with bacon-themed tutorials, jokes, poetry and double entendres.

Join Asylum as we meet the pork-obsessed folks behind this important event, and to see such heart-stopping concoctions such as bacon Twinkies and bacon Bloody Marys.

Follow the link to Asylum for the rest of the story….

 

Undercover Guardian: I Become a Guardian Angel

Published by Harmon on May 13th, 2010 in INFILTRATION

 


I use to think the Guardian Angels were the hall monitors of society. A vigilante group in red berets without actual legal power. A club for people who legally want to join a gang. A gang of good! I always felt annoyed by their presence. To begin with, I don’t like authority figures, let alone volunteer authority figures.

I needed to find out more. What makes them tick? What are their likes and dislikes? Do they like soup? Are they nice?!

So I threw aside past prejudices and joined up with the Venice Beach Guardian Angel Chapter. I was sold by the recruitment flyer. A multi-cultural mix of Angels are on the front; emblazoned below are the words “You CAN Make a Difference!”

It’s time to wash the scum off the streets. Yes, I, Harmon Leon, will make a difference!

MY PREPARATION:
- 1 Gung Ho attitude
- 6 Cups of coffee for a shaky effect
- 1 Spice Girls T-shirt
- 1 Catchphrase (“Gotta Get My Shakespeare Together!”)
NOTE: I’ve changed all the names — not to protect the innocent, but to protect my ass from being kicked.

TIME TO JOIN!

The Venice Beach Guardian Angels have hit on hard times. It just restarted three months ago, after some of the original members were booted for taking some of the group’s petty cash. The headquarters is located in a row of apartments on the beach; the actual building looks like a crack pad. It’s situated amongst shops selling bad T-shirts, amputee dwarf rap-singers, fat German tourists, and naked women sculpted in sand, all set against the backdrop of Baywatch-style lifeguard stands.

“Everyone Entering HQ Will Be Searched!” reads the sign outside. I enter. The place is pumping with testosterone. Immediately I’m searched, manhandled, and asked about my possession of knives. “We treat members like brothers, but watch them like hawks!” says the manhandler at the door.
Read my entire infiltration of the Guardian Angels by following the link to Zug.com.

 
 

John Stamos Arrested in Times Square Bomb Attempt

Published by Harmon on May 4th, 2010 in CONSPIRACY

John Stamos, the former star of the TV show Full House was charged Tuesday with terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in the botched Times Square bombing. The government said he confessed to receiving explosives training from Uncle Joey.

What went wrong Stamos, what went wrong?

A Big Thumbs Up For Roger Ebert at the San Francisco International Film Festival

Published by Harmon on May 3rd, 2010 in MOVIES

 


As filmmaker Terry Zwigoff stated on stage at the historicCastro Theater:

“There’s a murderers’ row of directors here tonight!”

The Ghost Worlddirector was referring to the cavalcade of cinematic talent on hand to pay tribute to renown movie critic,Roger Ebert, who received the Mel Novikoff Award at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival. Jason Reitman (Juno), Errol Morris (The Fog of War), and Philip Kaufman (Henry and June) all sang their praises for Ebert-whose love of all things movies has made him the icon of film criticism for three decades.

For me, it was a personal thrill being I’ve always loved Roger Ebert’s no-nonsense review approach. The “thumbs up” has become embedded in our culture thanks to the man who started his career at the Chicago Sun-Times and later went on to such movie review TV shows as Sneak Previews and At The Movies. I once had the pleasure of sitting in front of Roger Ebert during a screening at the Cannes Film Festival. I enjoyed occasionally looking back at Ebert knowing he was in the midst of a big thumbs up moment as he appeared to take in the film like a wide-eyed kid in cinematic heaven.

All the directors present expressed their gratitude to Ebert for championing their early films that might have been shuffled aside by the public-small films that were made for the right reasons. Zwigoff remarked that Ebert’s praise of his documentary Crumb not only launched the film into theaters but the glowing review he penned felt greater than winning the Oscar.

‘You don’t know if your film is good when you make,” Errol Morris stated to the crowd. “To me, it was Roger Ebert. I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude.”

Jason Reitman showcased Ebert’s sharp wit. Reitman read his favorite scathing Ebert review that summarized the man’s outlook and love for cinema:

“I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.”

Philip Kaufman shared stories of his friendship with the kid with the golden thumb, He remarked that Ebert fit into the old school Chicago tradition of,
“tough, give ‘em hell, no bullshit, tell it like it is.”

Battling jaw cancer over the last several years, Ebert proved that his sharp sense of humor was still firmly intact. Speaking with a computerized voice via a laptop, Ebert greeting the capacity San Francisco crowd with, “My little man is standing in his chair and applauding.” (A nod to the SF Chronicle’s iconic movie rating system.)

Speaking out against such Hollywood smoke-and-mirrors as 3D movies, franchises, sequels, superhero, and special effect films used as gimmicks to sell box office tickets, Ebert sang his praises for the evening’s film, Juila, which starred Tilda Swinton.

‘Let’s turn our euyes to the movie screen and make Francois Truffaut happy, and enjoy one hell of a great film.”

The SF International Film Festival runs until May 6th.

 

In honor of Roger Ebert, here’s some of his greatest moments alongside cohorts Gene Siskel and Richard Roeper.

 
 

11 Pointless Celebrity Impersonators

Published by Harmon on April 30th, 2010 in CELEBRITIES

 

Everyone wants to be famous. But what if you aren’t? And never will be? Then what?

Well, the next best thing, obviously, would be if you resembled someone who actually is famous. And got paid for it. This is what I set out to prove at Asylum.

But just like in Hollywood, there is a pecking order among celebrity impersonators. Some faux entertainersclearly deserve to be on the A-list. Others — like ol’ Mimi to the left, here — live their lives, for better or worse, on the Z-list.

Mimi From “The Drew Carey Show”
Given that it’s now 2010 and “The Drew Carey Show” has been off the air for six years, we don’t see this impersonator of Drew’s portly office foil getting much work — especially on her own. Maybe she’s a throw-in whenever someone hires this Drew Carey lookalike?

Andie MacDowell 
“Hey! You know what our office party needs? Someone who kind of looks like that curly headed model from the L’Oreal ads!

“We could have her walk around, and when people ask, ‘Who the hell are you?’ she can say, ‘I’m that curly-headed model from the L’Oreal ads.’ Or we can just let them assume she’s Lori from accounting.”

Click to Asylum for more about Mimi and 9 other entirely pointless celebrity impersonators.

Hey Dude: Do You Have A Fetish For Women’s Clothes?

Published by Harmon on April 27th, 2010 in IRONY

 Is there something wrong with a man — a heterosexual man, I might add — wanting to wear woman’s clothing? That’s what I wanted to find out this week for the site Zug.com.

 

Why does our society find this so unacceptable? Perhaps “The Man” doesn’t know the pleasures of angora wool against naked flesh. Mmmmmm! No! MUST RESIST! MUST RESIST!

After learning that Ed Wood had an ardent appetite for angora, I needed to find out more about this fetish. Then I would know the answers, as well as have a new outfit that wouldn’t make me look fat. Grab your charge cards and let’s shop!

GOAL: To journey along Oxford Street in London, trying on women’s angora sweaters.

PHILOSOPHY: There’s nothing wrong with a heterosexual male wanting to wear women’s clothing.

GUIDELINES:
1) I shall have a bag of disguises in order to adopt various angora-shopping personas.
2) I shall drink Brandy Alexanders along the way for inspiration.

PHILOSOPHY ON GUIDELINES: There’s nothing wrong with a heterosexual male wanting to drink Brandy Alexanders.

As I stand, looking down from the top of Oxford Street, I wonder what monsters lie ahead, waiting to foil me. Will it be an evil arch-villain, or just a bunch of cranky sales clerks? This feels like a grand adventure equivalent to Jason and the stuff he did with those Argonauts. Only, there aren’t any Argonauts here, only angora sweaters made from the softest angora wool. Mmmmm!

READ ON ENTIRE INFILTRATION INTO THE WORLD OF WOMAN’S CLOTHES AS ZUG.COM


 

Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Micmacs, and the San Francisco International Film Festival

Published by Harmon on April 26th, 2010 in MOVIES

Hot dilly damn. Thursday night kicked off the opening of the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival. And with it came Micmacs; the latest offering from innovative and imaginative French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Yes, he’s that guy who brought us such cinematic joys asAmelie, City of Lost Children, andDelicatessen.

“It’s Micmacs. It’s not Big Macs,” Jeunet told the packed crowed at the historic Castro Theater. “It’s about shenanigans. I just learned that word,shenanigans.”

Micmacs is a satire of the world arms trade. With that classic, recognizable Jeunet style, the film blends dark comedy with serious subject matter (“I thought about The Great Dictator. “), that smattered us in an aesthetic world of Rube Goldberg set pieces and a cacophony of surreal visuals and sound. After a video store clerk gets a stray bullet lodged in his head, he joins forces with a group of junkyard misfits that include a contortionist, a human cannonball, and other loveable oddballs. The band of eccentrics wage war on a pair of competing weapons manufacturers. Dany Boon portrays the lead role with the finesse of a silent film clown. (“The guy gets a bullet in the brain-it gives him an excuse to have imagination.”) Film lovers will note such Jeunet influences as Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton, alongside Tex Avery, Mission Impossible, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton.

“It’s Once Upon a Time in the West at the end, ” Jeunet assured the crowd. “I wanted to put everything I had into the film.”

A huge star in France, Jeunet enjoys the anonymity he receives in San Francisco:

“I was at a bookstore and I heard the music of Amelie. The woman there said, ‘It’s a French film.’ I said, ‘I know.’ She said, ‘Of course you know it-you’re French.’”

Before the screening I got a chance to chat with Jeunet as he made his way through the gauntlet on the red carpet. With child-like demeanor, he struck playful, animated poses as press cameras clicked. It was a thrill to look into the crazy, imaginative eyes of Jeunet, whose vision has brought the world such treasures as the squeaking bed scene in Delicatessen.

“You have to forgive me because I’m tired,” Jeunet stated outside the Castro Theater.

I nodded my head and assured that all was forgiven. I then leaned forward and asked the astute: “Where does your crazy imagination come up with the ideas for your films?”

Jean-Pierre Jeunet leaned forward. He replied: “It’s 10% inspiration, and 90%, how do you say (search for word and looks at translator), perspiration.”

Oh no. I’ve made one of the most imaginative people on the planet quote a bumper sticker saying. I should have just asked him, “Who are you wearing?” Must try harder.

“When you were 18, you worked for the telephone company. Did any of your ideas come from that experience?”

“At 18 I was at a telephone company and now I’m here!” he beamed. “Imagination was what saved my life. An important moment for me was when a friend of my parents got a Super 8 camera. I remember the sound of the camera. (Simulates sound of a Super 8 camera.) So I worked really hard to get that camera.”

“How would you describe your filmmaking process?”

“I am a sailor in the middle of the sea–alone. It is cold. I don’t sleep. Sailors fight. But I love it,” he said. “When you go into a toy box, it’s best to build the most beautiful toy you can.”

How does Jeunet feel his films are received in the U.S. compared to his homeland?

“They laugh much less in France. They love to hate what they loved before. (Pause.) ‘I want to stay in San Francisco. ”

The San Francisco International Film Festival runs until May 6th.

Heinous crimes to commit in San Francisco

Published by Harmon on April 26th, 2010 in IRONY

What are some of the most heinous crimes against humanity one can commit in San Francisco? I'm talking about those abhorrent acts that send the local 7x7 residents into a frenzy. Just pure nails-to-the-mental-chalkboard stuff; like someone referring to San Francisco as "Frisco".

I've polled a few hardened San Francisco friends/citizens. These are a few offenses that always seem to send the locals apesh*t within these cramped city confines.

Car That Stops 2-inches Into The Crosswalk

If you are in a vehicle and do such, expect that cold, stony stare of death from pedestrians. Self-imposed death sentence if you do so while on a cell phone. People crossing the road will magnify this atrocity by taking large exaggerated steps around the car, verbalizing their displeasure, or simply hitting the automobile's trunk. Strong, direct eye-contact is utilized.

Walking 3 Abreast At A Slow Pace Down the Sidewalk On Valencia Street

Okay, it's not the walking that drives people crazy; it's the inability to get around them as they slowly saunter side-by-side in the midst of some inane conversation about the number of taquerias they just passed. A bottle-neck of walkers forms behind them. No one can get around these folks on their clueless evening promenade.

Hogging the Coffee Bar's Creamery Station

Put the sugar and cream in, stir it, and then get the HELL out of the way! I don't know how many times I've been waiting to put a dollop of cream in my coffee and get stuck behind some guy who thinks he's Chef Emeril Lagasse as he takes over the entire creamery station for that precise master blend of sugar, cream, sugar again, cream once more, stirring, and then repeating the entire process 3-4 more times. Usually lighting bolts of hate will be projected into this offenders back. Hangovers don't help the scenario.

Tourist Asking For Directions

This isn't really a SF crime against humanity. Naive tourist will ask a local for directions. We're usually so bitter by so many people asking for spare change on a daily basis, that our knee-jerk reaction is to blurt, "Sorry, I can't help you!" even before the Danish tourists can ask where the locale of Haight Street is.

Having Your Windshield Spit On While In Traffic During Critical Mass

Why is this adult on a bicycle spitting on the windshield of my car? I just simply want to get home from work and enjoy a nice bowl of soup.

Do you have a favorite heinous crime against humanity in San Francisco? Is it whiny self-righteous people who get offended by everything that puts their panties in a bundle? Or,is it when you are walking to the laundromat to get your stuff out of the dryer and all the homeless people you pass are wearing your clothes? We want to hear it amongst the sea of usual moronic comments

Read more Harmon Leon at Huffington Post, True/Slant, and on Amazon.

 



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/hleon/index#ixzz0mGL3VEOs

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/hleon/index#ixzz0mGL3ZWmP

Earth Day and Lenin’s Birthday: Coincidence or Something More?

Published by Harmon on April 22nd, 2010 in POLITICS

 April 22nd is Earth Day. It’s also Lenin’sbirthday. Conspiracy theory nuts pop a major woody over this coincidence. Just a mere two days after hearing people pull parallels between 4/20 and Hitler’s birthday, we know have to listen to the right-wing conservatives connect the dots between the day designated to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment, alongside the birthday of the man who developed the pragmatic Russian application of Marxism.

While attending the big Tea Party Patriot jamboree last week at the Alameda County Fairground, Brian Sussman–an astute speaker from the conservative “Hot Talk” radio station KSFO, informed the patriotic crowd that the Earth Day/Lenin’s birthday connection was no mere coincidence.

“Earth Day was created by a bunch of communists from Stanford.” Sussman informed the red, white, and blue-clad gathering. “It’s not about clean air; it’s about power and what’s going on to make money!” he summarized about Earth Day’s origins and liberals’ plight to save the planet.

Conservatives are actually pissed off at the entire notion of celebrating Earth Day. They say that Earth Day is merely a Trojan horse in order to make Americans celebrate Lenin’s birthday. We call these conservatives “the insane”. I’ve never heard of this conspiracy theory before Obama was elected. And now that his presidency and health care reform are supposedly tearing at the very fabric of the American way of life, it’s now become a popular conservative bandwagon for Tea Party Patriots to jump on in between their discussions on whether or not our president was born in America.

Read with me from the Wisconsin Law Journal:

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It’s appropriate that the two are celebrated on the same day, because there is no relevant difference between the socialist and environmentalist agendas in this country. Saving the environment is simply a euphemism for eviscerating the rights of property owners and creating a dictatorship.

Deemed as a new holy day for the Marxist faith, Earth Day has been referred to as a political holiday for those pseudo-environmentalists known asWatermelons: green on the outside but red on the inside:

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For many political Leftists, environmentalism is merely a pretext through which private property and capitalism can be regulated, strangled, and finally replaced with totalitarian government ownership of everything. How could they criticize Marxist dictatorships, since their prescription for “healing the world” is socialist dictatorship?

Man, these conservatives have way too much free time on their hands. If they could only throw Bigfoot, Tupac’s murder, and the New World Order into this conspiracy theory, they would have one hell of a huge following.

Is the Icelandic Volcano Eruption a Scientology Marketing Ploy?

Published by Harmon on April 20th, 2010 in IRONY

Is the cult of Scientology the chief instigators behind the eruption of the Icelandic volcano? In the Scientology doctrine, Xenu is a galactic ruler who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living. These events are known as "Incident II" or "The Wall of Fire," and the traumatic memories associated with them are known as the "R6 implant." The Xenu story prompted the use of the volcano as a Scientology symbol. The cover of the L. Ron Hubbard's book, Dianetics, features an erupting volcano.

 The Icelandic volcano eruption has put a halt to air travel throughout Europe; leaving travelers stranded at airports. And what do travelers read at airports? Books--such as Dianetics.

Coincidence or something more............