Grab Bag Pride Edition 2025: Giants make a blockbuster move, Valkyries impress, Auto-Racing movie reviews, and what's happening down in Antartica?? Anna Wintour resigns from Vogue!
- Colby Michaels
- Jun 26
- 9 min read
Hello gentle readers! Happy Pride Month to all who celebrate! Are you working on your summer bod? Using sunscreen for this summer's various heatwaves? Or fogged in with our usual San Francisco Summer weather? Either way, a few things happened since we last checked in, so lets get into it! Breaking: as I was getting ready to hit, my notifications lit up with the news that Anna Wintour is stepping down from Vogue! Pearls, clutched! San Francisco News: I posted about some landmark restaurant closings on my last post, but I have reports of some OPENINGS of note- with links instead of my yapping! :)
Down at Pier 39, there is a brand new all-you-can-eat chain restaurant opening in early July- the establishment is called FIRE+iCE. For us locals, methinks the best time to visit would be off-season, as this will surely be a hugely popular tourist destination. I'm eyeing the steak fajitas, to start! https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/tahoe-all-you-can-eat-restaurant-sf-20380179.php?link_source=ta_first_comment&taid=6851b68154f5730001330129&fbclid=IwY2xjawK-rhtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE0aE9iYlZTa1k3ZGRKTXVyAR5t4xf33p_hdfj7KEyLOqhlec6ZftPFpxGoE2l1Zg6-FHLw2r5HLgYqcSU_Cg_aem_guMfeiRcWdmhsmJ9tU5zcA Thanks to Ms. Christina Ashton for the tip!
Next up, the long vacant 1000 Van Ness space that once housed the16 screen AMC Theaters, is getting a new tenant, Apple Cinema ( I believe no relation to THAT Apple). Mayor Lurie made the announcement last week, and details are limited, but as the brief article in the link below suggests, a hopeful opening date is about 30 days. Would be nice to see this movie theater space reactivated again, as it's convenient via public transport, and gives that area an economic boost (Hello, Tommy's Joynt and your yummy sammies!).
Finally (and long overdue, imho), San Francisco is getting it's first lesbian-owned sports bar in the Castro! The timing works nicely with the WNBA's Golden State Valkyries inaugural season! Rikki's, on Market Street has many TV screens for viewing (they will show other sports like the Niners and Giants), but the focus will be on women's sports. Besides some cool signature cocktails (Queen is King!), there is elevated pub fare as well (Dani, I see fish n chips!). The name of the bar comes from a well-known lesbian named Rikki Streicher, who in the 80's owned the infamous Maud's in the Haight (where I honed my ping-pong playing skills on the back outdoor patio- memories!). Rikki's had a very successful grand opening just recently, and it looks like it's going to stick around for a while! PS: I can confirm from reliable sources the place is PACKED for Valkyries games!
Locker Room:
San Francisco Giants: Talk about shaking up the sports-ball world, as GM (he basically is!) Buster Posey made one of the boldest moves in SF Giants history and traded for Boston Red Sox' Rafael Devers, a 2-time Silver Slugger winner, and a home run machine. Trade details in the links below, but this is a MASSIVELY BOLD move (with risks, one of them being that 8-year 250M dollar contract, the largest ever the Giants have taken on), to boost the Giants playoff chances (they were tied with the Dodgers for first in the National League West just a week ago), by adding a proven big bat to the lineup (those one-run games must've been frustrating Buster!). This story nicely sums up the overall pieces to this huge trade- highly recommended read for the present and future Giants plans.
Devers in his first game as a Giant, got two hits, much to the delight of the fans, but the Giants dropped 2 out of 3 to the Cleveland Guardians. Their next opponent during the weekend at Oracle Park? Devers former team, the aforementioned Boston Red Sox. The baseball gods do like their drama!
The Giants dropped the first game, 7-5, but on Saturday, Devers hit his first home run as a Giant, against his former team, to help lead the Giants to a 3-2 victory. San Francisco found their hitting strokes in Sunday's 9-5 victory over Boston to take the the series. I mention this because if you look at the box scores for the last two weeks, those games would show that the Giants averaged only five hits; it's been the Giants pitching that has been carrying the team. An example is our middle relievers, as this image shows:
Golden State Valkyries: The lady Vals set a record dating back to 2008 by winning five games in their first season, and were at 5-5 and on a four game winning streak till they lost to a team that had only won one game out of 10 (ouch!). The Vals next took on Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever, and what do ya know- The Vals came in as underdogs, and at one point were 13 points down, but they dominated the 4th quarter, outscoring the Fever 31-18, en route to 86-77 upset victory! We call this a "statement game", as the Fever are one of the top four teams in the WNBA. The Vals played Sunday against the Connecticut Sun and beat them 86-73, and are now over .500 for the first time after 13 games! And I JUST learned before hitting publish that the Valkyries have the HIGHEST valuation of any team in the WNBA- and they are only in their first year! The Valkyries are valued at 500 million, while the defending WNBA champions, the New York Liberty, come in 2nd at 450 million. Oh, and the Liberty come to Balhalla (known as Chase Center) Wednesday night! Update: Vals lost to the Liberty by 3 points. NBA Finals: Well this came down to a final deciding game seven in the NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder, in OKC. The Pacers lost their All-Star player, Tyrese Haliburton to a serious ankle injury early in the game, and while the Pacers valiantly put up a good fight, the Thunder just had too much talent, ending up winning the game, 101-93, and are the 2025 NBA Champions.
NBA Draft: Well, before the draft, the Phoenix Suns decided to get an early start on making blockbuster news, trading 15-time All-Star Keven Durant to the Houston Rockets for several players and a bunch of draft picks in the 2025 and 2026 draft. Details in the link here: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45561747/sources-suns-trading-kevin-durant-rockets-blockbuster-deal Day one of the Draft (which the Warriors do not have a pick in- they draft 41st on Thursday.), and to no one's surprise, the Dallas Mavericks chose Duke's star Cooper Flagg with the first pick.
Culture Club: Movie and TV reviews!
Revving up for the upcoming F1 movie, I FINALLY got around to seeing "Ferrari", directed by Michael Mann (a project he has been working on for decades to bring to the screen), one of my favorite directors (Collateral with Tom Cruise and Jaime Foxx is a must see on how Mann photographs Los Angles at night- it's a masterclass!), and starring Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari, who created the car and the brand we know of today; Penelope Cruz as his estranged and grief-stricken wife, and Shailene Woodley as his mistress and mother to his one remaining son. Mann focuses on one year of Enzo and Ferrari's life, 1957, the why being summed up in this synopsis:
During the summer of 1957, bankruptcy looms over the company that Enzo Ferrari and his wife had built 10 years earlier. He decides to roll the dice and wager it all on the iconic Mille Miglia, a treacherous 1000-mile race across Italy.
That's the overview. One viewer wrote an excellent review that sums up my feelings succinctly: This is a biopic of automotive mogul Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), specifically focused on the events of 1957. I really liked most of this movie. I loved how it felt like a character study of a man who is a flawed perfectionist, all the while juggling between his personal and his professional life. His family life was very complex, still grieving for his recently deceased son Dino with his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz), while having a mistress Lina (Shailene Woodley), who also has his son Piero. His professional life was just as complex. With the thought of bankruptcy looming over him, he focuses solely on winning the Mille Miglia, a 1000-mile race. Known as a ruthless genius, some would say he was more machine than man, others would say he was a modern-day Jesus, comparing carpentry to car manufacturing. He thought of everybody around him as disposable. He understood the extremely high risks his drivers took every time they got into one of his cars. FERRARI highlights all of this and more. I have a couple nitpicks though. With the Italian accent, it was sometimes difficult to understand the dialogue. Also, I wish the story grabbed my attention as much as the racing scenes did. There is one scene near the end that left people gasping, I know I won’t forget it for a very long time. Nevertheless, with the addition of cinematography that avoids being too flashy, a great score, and the palpable combination of Driver’s icy performance and Cruz’s fiery performance, I have no problem recommending FERRARI.
I agree with this viewer's nitpicks that this flick took time for me to warm up to, and the accents did make it difficult at times to understand what was being said. The performances though are spot on, especially Penelope Cruz, who was an emotional pressure cooker just moments away from exploding. Adam Driver was very accurate in his portrayal of Enzo, and Shailene Woodley's quiet yet frustrated mistress and mother was elegantly done. Michael Mann is a stickler for detailed accuracy, as viewed by the set designs throughout the film. Mann is also very big on historical accuracy, so yes, when you see a driver in THOSE race cars (unlike the ones today in F1 racing), when a driver hits a curb on a turn, Mann films in the same frame, both the driver and the car airborne. Mann's filming of the tragic 1957 Mille Miglia race is very exciting with different camera angles as racers race along the streets and roads of Italy...and then the GASP moment when tragedy strikes. I have seen a LOT of awful depictions of accidents in fictional and non-fiction movies, but Mann's photography and camera units (and CGI), had me scream out loud at the horrific scene that I had read about in Formula One history, but to see it depicted....you may need to pause the film to collect yourself before finishing it. I, like the above viewer, DO recommend the film as a sampling of the life of Ferrari, and the folks the company is based on. Now available to rent on Amazon Prime for like 4 bucks!
Another flick to gear you up for the F1 movie is Ford vs. Ferrari, starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale as the leads. I wrote a lot on the Ferrari movie above, so I'll keep this one short. it's the 1960's, and Ford is trying to appeal to a different demographic to reach, as sales have stagnated. Lee Iacocca (remember him? see Chrysler cars) suggests partnering up with Ferrari, which does not go well. Thanks to Henry Ford II's ego, Iacocca (played by John Bernthal) goes out and recruits former driver Carroll Shelby, played by Damon, to put together a team that can build, race and WIN the Le Mans 24 hour race. Shelby then recruits Bale's Ken Myles, a former driver himself, and an ornery Irishman with a mouth on him, and not a fan of being a "team player". This was a fun film to watch, especially watching Damon's Shelby character outwit the movie's d-bag, Leo Beebe, brilliantly played with slimy corporate perfection by Josh Lucas. The racing scenes here are also top-notch, definitely more humor, and a lot of heart, with a bittersweet ending. Highly recommended even for non-race car fans. I think the promo below will seal the deal! :)
Now on basic cable and Amazon Prime (free if you a member!).
F1 Academy: a seven part docu-series from Netflix, co-produced by the F1 Academy's director Susie Wolff- and it shows. The F1 Academy is the branch of F1 for women (in this case girls-they, like the boys , so young to be driving this fast!), who unlike on the boys side, drive the exact same car specs for 15 teams, and they have two years to prove themselves.
While it bears some resemblance to Drive to Survive F1 series, I found it to be lacking, with too much emphasis on off-track "human interest" stories rather than on racing development. The last three episodes are more what I was looking for in what's at stake. I mildly recommend, if only for supporting female drivers in a male dominated sport. I just wish this wasn't something that I would've seen on a fluffy reality TV show.
Pokerface: Lets have ONE non-racing show in the Bag! Pokerface, having concluded its second season, stars Natasha Lyonne, who plays Charlie, as a kind-of drifter, letting the road takes her where it does (though season one and the first few eps of season two, she kinda had to be on the run from the mob!). Charlie has a very unique skill though, she can absolutely tell when a person is lying (hence the title of the show). The show is a weekly crime-solving mystery, which may be misleading, as each episode starts with the criminal of the week doing the crime, then Charlie's comes in, and we see some of the same things happen, but from Charlie's point of view, until she (and the audience) have all the pieces together to bust the perp! Created and produced by Rian Johnson of Knives Out fame, Rian's humor and look and feel of the show are on display- I keep comparing it to a modern-day "Columbo" (ask your parents), and having the uniquely quirky Lyonne is a huge bonus! Both Lyonne and Johnson dug into their extensive lists of friends to guest star (usually as the perp) on the show, as the promo below displays! The first episode of season two had Cynthia Erivo casting a spell ( I KNOW!) as she ends up playing FIVE different characters- all the flowers, please!
Weird Stuff: If you decide to cook a fine steak sous-vide style in this hillbilly dishwasher style, we can't be friends! So wrong! https://www.vice.com/en/article/dishwashers-can-cook-the-perfect-rare-steak-meat-lover-claims/
Science! Strange unknown sounds coming from the Antarctic that scientists cannot identify? What could that be? https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/particle-physics/bizarre-radio-signals-that-defy-physics-detected-under-antarctica-its-one-of-these-long-standing-mysteries
Perhaps a precursor of things to come?
David and Dani KNOW how excited I am for this series to come out in August! Happy Pride to all, and a safe wonderful 4th of July weekend!
Happy Pride! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️