To unpublish a node, I set status=0 and call node_save(). Unfortunately, this invokes the Geocoder module and it sends a request to the Google API for a geocode that I already have. There is apparently no way to turn this off.
I am looking for an alternative to node_save() that does not trigger this behavior or any other hooks, for that matter.
(btw, for fields I am achieving this with field_attach_update, but to unpublish I need to update the node itself)