121 things to be thankful for

121 Things: To Be Thankful For

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

1. The restaurants (and crazy good food): Mum's, Art's Cafe, Taqueria Cancun, Little Baobab, Rosamunde Sausage Grill, Tadich Grill, Kiss, El Tonayense, Arinell Pizza, Iroha and Yum Yum House.

2. The bars (and lost memories): 500 Club, the Homestead, El Rio, Sadie's Flying Elephant, Latin American Club, Toronado, Zeitgeist, Gestalt, the Uptown, the Phone Booth and Bender's (which is reopening soon).

3. The clubs (and found memories): 12 Galaxies, Great American Music Hall, Mezzanine, Bottom of the Hill, Cafe Du Nord, Hemlock Tavern, Annie's Social Club, Bimbo's 365 Club, Slim's, the Make-Out Room and Thee Parkside.

4. The serious songs (and fond memories): "Another Girl, Another Planet" (the Only Ones), "Where Were You?" (the Mekons), "Doin' It Again" (the Feelies), "Gotta Getaway" (Stiff Little Fingers), "Bastards of Young" (the Replacements), "Neat Neat Neat" (the Damned), "New Noise" (the Refused), "Rockets" (Cat Power), "Teenage Riot" (Sonic Youth), "In Sadding Around" (Jawbreaker) and "Life Is Grand" (Camper Van Beethoven).

5. The goofy songs (and fun memories): "Age of Pamparius" (Turbonegro), "Shake Your Rump" (Beastie Boys), "Hey Hey What Can I Do" (Led Zeppelin), "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)" (AC/DC), "I Wanna Be Sedated" (the Ramones), "Bitchin' Camaro" (the Dead Milkmen), "Little Guitars" (Van Halen), "Push th' Little Daisies" (Ween), "Saving Up for My Space Ship" (Earthlings?), "TV Party" (Black Flag) and "Wot?" (Captain Sensible).

6. The Web (and constant flow of information): SFGate.com, Salon, Slate, BBC News, Mother Jones, Vice, SFist/LAist/Bostonist/Gothamist, Boing Boing, Defamer, Gawker and Wonkette.

7. The voices (of sanity in an insane world): Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Seymour Hersh, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, Arianna Huffington, Robert Scheer, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert and Tom Tomorrow.

8. The freedom (to speak out): Against war, torture, corruption, lies, deception, fraud, greed, cronyism, negligence, incompetence - and the freedom to be elsewhere when these matters are brought up at your dinner table later today.

9. The being (old enough to know better and young enough not to care): Vim, vigor, fun, desire, determination, passion, patience, attitude, fortitude, independence and perseverance.

10. The friends (old and new): Tom, Eric, Tashalex, Kim, Jimmy, Charlene, Sean, Rich, Rych, Ryan, Todd and all the crazy people out there in cyberspace.

11. The family (always, always, always): Mom, Dad, Amy, Jeff, Matthew, Adam, Uncle John, Aunt Barbara, Aunt Mary Lou, Uncle Emmett and Uncle Joe.

- Tim Sullivan, tsullivan@sfchronicle.com

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/21/NSPVTFBDM.DTL

This article appeared on page G - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle