Lousy San Francisco Podcast Season 3.1 - SK Morton Creative SK Morton Creative

SK and Pete have been doing this for a while now. And by "this" we mean goofing off, yelling over each other, and wandering through irrelevant tangents. But this week that all changed. This week we concentrated on just annoying our guest.

She is a comedian, an actress, a writer as well as published author (Because anybody can write, but only an author can wear patches on their blazer elbows), and as if all that weren't enough [of a cry for approval], she also appeased her parents by mastering the tech industry as some sort of transponster or something with Yahoo and Google.

Here in the Bomb Shelter, we recognized her many talents by: 1) Editing her 3 hour interview down to about 45 minutes. 2) Luring her into betraying her true feelings about fish dismemberment. 3) Inciting her to abandon her husband's name. 4) Urging her to appropriate her own Jamaican culture. 5) Highlighting her gifts of song and harmony. 6) Uncovering the truth - that she 'don't know nuthin' about birthin' no babies. 7) Outing her as the mastermind behind Flash Ads and her 4th grade teacher for worse than flashing. 8) Arguing about Georgia Tech's mascot. 9) Interrogating her about how often she wears pajamas in public. 10) Deciding that she's most funny when all parties are tipsy.

Ladies and gentlemen...please welcome a very funny lady...Sarah Cooper!

You can tell a show is on its way out when the focus and enthusiasm of its participants begins to wane...and they add a new kid to the cast... or Ted McGinley. We couldn't afford McGinley so ladies and gentlemen: Mr. Conway Twitty.

To be fair, SK and Pete can hardly be blamed for their low energy performance. Pete is becoming increasingly more busy with his musical career (Including his new album) and SK doesn't know any more things. This is evidenced by the updates this week which focused more on SK's jacket, his eating off of the desk, and his inability to keep up with his editing duties than it did the problems with the SF Municipal  Transportation Agency. But hey, this one got posted...four months late and on a Wednesday.

Ultimately the two did get around to the night's theme of Land's End. They discussed Ocean Beach, the Outside Lands and Carville, the Cliff House and the baths of both Sutro as well as Lurline. SK gave his interpretation of facts when it came to Playland-at-the-Beach, It's Its, the Norwegian Gjoa, the SkyTram, Murre eggs at the Farallones Islands, Naiad Cove, Mile Rock, Seal Rock, Flag Rock, Kevin Hart and The Rock, O'neill wetsuits and [appropriately] jumping sharks.

To top it all off and sum it up: We talked about the Lyman Stewart, Frank Buck, Ohioan, SS Coos Bay, Rio De Jinero, Parallel and Yosemite stories....it was a ship wreck.

Gather 'round kids and I'll tell you a story about how, in the olden days, people worked their whole life at one place and still found fulfillment ...even without collaboration, or diverse strategies, or company furnished lattes.

It all happened way back in 1976 when a young Tom Sweeney, fresh out of Riordan High School leveraged his mother's affiliation with the movers and shakers of the time to secure for himself, not one but, two coveted and lucrative positions.

The first was a vending job at both Candlestick Park and the Oakland Colosseum. Here he learned a strong work ethic, flirted with players' wives, and cleaned up selling souvenirs during the '89 World Series and Earthquake.

But the real fun came when he became a doorman at the Drake Hotel in Union Square. He started his career by nabbing two would-be robbers, receiving the City's first, "Nick of Time' award, palling around with Joe Montana and Dwight Clark, and capping it off by saving a drowning woman while on holiday in Acapulco. Along the way he had encounters with Tom Hanks, Sam Elliott, and Tony Blair, while appearing on the Young & the Restless, serving as inspiration for the Drake's Sweeney-tini, and having May 2nd declared Tom Sweeney Day.

Of course it's all to be expected from a 3rd generation San Franciscan who enjoys the occasional SF themed podcast that covers topics from the shuttering of SFist to the increase of mountain lion sightings in the city to the retirement of Michael Tilson Thomas.

And of course, that podcast is none other than, Peanut Butter Oreo, with Pete & Babette.

It's bigger. It's badder. And this time it may be inoperable. If you enjoyed, or even heard of, the first episode of StealthCat, get ready to be underwhelmed. This week, he's back with new enemies and new [let's call them] allies.

When we last left our hero, Henry Stealthcat was back in town to take on his nemesis, the Loan Shark. This time we are introduced to some new heroes such as Superintendent, The Parker, and The Black Guy. They'll team up to, not only take on the Loan Shark and his crew but, a new player is set to take on the forces of good enough, The Pill.

Along the way we, alternately, learn about/are bored to death by stories of, the upgrading of Van Ness avenue for public transportation, the House of Prime Rib's secret menu, and the coin cleaning process at the St. Francis Hotel in Union Square.

Every legend has a beginning, every hero has a birth, and every episode of StealthCat has an incoherent plot, undeveloped characters, and desperate attempts to be funny...with great fanfare, comes great lousy.

We don't have to tell you the podcast is bad. Everybody knows the podcast is bad. It's depressing. Everybody's either sick of the act or scared that they might like it.

The dollar buys a membership on Patreon, transit companies like Chariot and BART are getting busted, Itditarod dogs are juicing, coyotes are running wild in the street and we sit and listen to our Itunes while some local podcaster tells us that there's only one California quail left in the City, as if that's the way it's supposed to be, and there's nobody anywhere who knows what to do and there's no end to it.

We know this show is bad - worse than bad. It's gimmicky. We almost ruined a dream of an opportunity when, Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame inductee, Peter Finch joined us. He told us of his history in radio both in SF and in Colorado, interviewing the likes of Micky Dolenz, Charo, Weird Al, Andy Dick, Tammy Fay Baker, Grace Slick, Yoko Ono, and President Obama, and we just sat there as our own Lousy San Francisco podcast and , what passed for, our talent got smaller compared to his Finch Files, and all we said was, "Please. Leave us alone in our Bomb Shelter. Let us have our pop tarts and our Arizona grape and our steel belted radials and we won't say any more. Just leave us alone."

Well we're not going to leave you alone. We don't want you to protest. We don't want you to riot or write your congressman because Finch also has things to say about the Thunderbird Theater Company with his two playwright credits - Aaah Rosebud & Aaron Trotter and the Incident at Bikini Beach - and, most importantly, the Square Peg Foundation and the Square Peg Ranch Horse Reserve Adaptive Riding Center. All we know is that first you've got to get lousy. You've got to say, "I'm a Throng member, my life has value!"

So we want you to get up now, out of your chairs, go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: "I'm lousy as hell, and I'm not gonna take this anymore!"  

As I look out my window on a beautiful spring morning (I can tell it's spring because the birds and bees are acting like they're not interested when I know they're totally into me) I am reminded of that April I spent watching Rick Steves tell me about England.

Wonder no more, says I, as SK is inspired to talk like an aged Liverpool urchin. This week, in the Bomb Shelter, we are graced with none other than the real Tony Quarrington. Author, SF historian, tour guide, Dead head, bon vivant, and retired public employee (That's how he can afford to be a bon vivant), Tony fills us in on his special San Francisco hide outs and his Fabulous Folkestone Walking Tour.

Along the way we discuss tea rationing (a cause to celebrate), Illuminate the Arts (again), Friedel Klussmann (yes, that Friedel Klussmann), Martha's Coffee (to say nothing of her borscht), Mel Gibson's anti-angloism (Mel Gibson is: Shaka Zulu!), his book, A Half Forgotten Triumph (that's the title not a commentary) and of course Tony relates stories about his beloved adopted hometowns of San Francisco and Folkestone.

So have an earwig and get chuffed.