Alice Sux

So, I don't listen to Alice (a mainstream, large radio station described as contemporary rock or hot adult contemporary on the internet) usually. I mean I have before when I was painting my apartment and had already killed enough brain cells (before they'd had time to regenerate) with paint fumes and couldn't make any more decisions among my CDs and the other mainstream rock stations were either not as close on the dial or annoying me more. But, I certainly won't admit it.

Our friend Damon, who is marrying my grad school classmate Rachel, is a film maker. He just moved to SF from Ireland, where there is a film industry, to be with Rachel. So, he's peddling his wears and trying to build his career here, where we have no film industry. As part of that process, he enters his films into local contests and one of these was last night's Alice’s 3-minute film festival at Bimbo’s (I love Bimbo’s).

The films were good and certainly entertaining but most of them rather amateur. Damon is a professional film maker, and his entry, Aroma, in the comedy category, was gorgeous. You also can't really argue with the premise: farting grandmas. But alas, this was an Alice event, where cute dogs knocking over trash cans (and it WAS a very cute dog) made into non-beautiful films win over gorgeous farting grandmas. As Marshall said, "this is so un-San Francisco." I know we were all embarrassed for our city.

Damon agreed. In fact, he lost to that same dog flick in San Diego. Of course, you know that Southern California (Spanish architecture, plastic surgery, suntans), and all of its aesthetics, are infinitely inferior (lower class) to Northern California (redwood trees, rainbows, dope smokers). Unless, of course, you're coming from the perspective of mainstream rock radio stations. We do still house the Marina after all (a mainstream-type of neighborhood where the women are all blond and perfect and the men all drive nice cars and everyone works out all the time and the craziest thing anyone ever did was get drunk and dance on a bar in the Mission, the gentrified-artsy-Latino neighborhood where I live).

So, I don't know. I am done being snooty for today. I think Damon should be more selective about where he submits his films. That said, he probably got some excellent exposure at least among the judges. (Plus, we got them! We stole the flowers off the table when we left.) And only one film can win.

What is quality anyway? The half time band totally sucked (we all agreed) in a sort of lacking originality kind of way. They sang about how women shouldn't wait around for Mr. Right, which I was personally offended by. They were tight, but sort of Hooty-and-the-Blow-Fish kind of boring (I don't know Hooty -- someone else said that). But someone liked them enough to select them. What I am trying to say is, we don't all have to agree, but we should at least all try to get along (e.g., Rodney King).