TK Recommends

Restaurant: Outta Sight Pizza

This modest storefront on a windswept Tenderloin block is quietly (or maybe not quietly) serving up some of the best, most underrated pizza in Garbage City. (There’s also one in Chinatown but I’ve never been there so it doesn’t exist to me, the main character of the universe). They do whole pies but the real draw (at least for nearby worker drones, who form a line to the sidewalk at weekday lunchtime) is the slices. The variety!

Forget your basic cheese/pepperoni/supreme. I personally love Lunchlady, square slices just like you used to get in middle school but good and fat. The slices change all the time but include stuff like puttanesca, jerk chicken, vodka sauce, mushroom, you get the idea. The Chinatown location is kind of famous for their Peking Duck pizza which sounds too gimmicky to me but people love that shit. The vibe is loud hip-hop, profusely tattooed child staff, stickers everywhere. It reminded me of Golden Boy in the 90’s, just from vibe, not the pizza. A lot of people say it’s a real New York slice but I can’t speak to that.

They also have subs and the Italian is so fucking good. It’s $18 but that’s just what shit costs now, grow up, everyone’s gotta eat.

Podcast: Fall of Civilizations

Instead of focusing on our own society collapsing around us, I highly recommend you select one of a number of past civilizations and listen to their downfall in this meticulously researched and incredibly addictive podcast series which features the reassuringly British accent of Paul Cooper guiding you through the decline and fall of the Mayans, the Assyrians, the Inca, the Mongols, and others. Some episodes are as long as 4 hours but are so capitvating you barely notice. Sadly, Paul hasn’t graced us with a new episode since December 2024, but I hope that ends soon, at least before America does.

Mood: Dissociated

Really the only way to get through the day any more. I must admit the first thing I do upon waking is activate the Terror Square and find out what batshit crazy things have happened between 10 pm and 7 am. It’s usually a lot. You can’t take it all, it’s too much. Sometimes you just need to get away. Lately I’ve found this Dissociation Beverage helps:

5 mg THC, 10 mg CBD, not enough to get really high but enough to reliably take the edge off. Available locally at Urbana. (There’s also a smaller version with just 2 mg THC if you want to start off less dissociatey.)

TV: Blue Lights

You know there’s nothing I like more than an Irish prestige crime drama. (Incidentally, one of the best of the genre, and one of my favorite shows of all time, is Love/Hate, a gripping, tense, occasionally funny five-season drama about a fictional crime syndicate in Dublin, it’s on Prime Video, go check it out but turn subtitles on.) And this show certainly delivers. Set in modern-day Dublin, the residual effects of the Troubles are never far away, even if the central conflcit doesn’t exist as it once did. It’s on Apple TV and BritBox. What do you mean you don’t have BritBox? You have to have BritBox.