Down and Out in S.F.

If you don’t like Broke-Ass Stuart and his guidebook, you and your Frommer’s can go fuck yourselves at the Ferry Building. That’s the impression we get when paging through Broke-Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco. It seems like he wrote the book in four days. He doesn’t bother with phrases like “mouth-watering sandwiches,” he doesn’t include symbols like $$ or adorable little forks, he takes a stab at hours and prices only when it suits him — often it doesn’t. He loves talking about crackheads. He’s just as excited about Whiz Burger on South Van Ness as we are. He leaves plenty out — he’s just one broke-ass man, after all. And he writes about himself, constantly, especially about the crazy idea he had to just go ahead and write a guidebook spilling all the insider shit he knows or learned when bolting around to bars and restaurants, scribbling his woefully meager notes, some of which he photocopied and included in the book (“LSD,” he wrote in big block letters on his Haight page). We love everything about Broke-Ass, including his guide. It belongs in your bathroom. Don’t give it to your parents.
Fri., Aug. 1, 7 p.m., 2008