Tuesday, November 30, 2004

limey sac

I need to do another interview. I'm slacking. Maybe I will interview random people at the Bonn Lair tonight during the Kings game. Maybe we can see why some limeys choose to live in Sac.

Sexxeee Science

I saw Kinsey last night. Finally, a movie that accurately portrays the sexiness of science. It's not all lab coats and test tubes, folks. We arrived early and snuck in to watch a bit of Alexander. What a stinker! Why the fuck do the Macedonians and Greeks have Irish accents? Except for Jolie, who seems to be from Translyvania. I wish I would have seen the Rosario Dawson nudity, though. Grace declared them The Best Breasts She's Ever Seen. Besides mine, of course.

I ate at Maalouf's last night and it was delicious as always. Mike wouldn't let me ask if he knew any Homsi jokes, but I think it would have been appropriate because the owner is Lebanese and it seems that most Homsi jokes originate from Lebanon. They've changed their menu a bit recently and one welcome addition is a kibbee sandwich. The owner said he makes it for himself so he added it to the menu and it's becoming popular.

So, Korea house-This place is tucked away off Bradshaw. You take highway 50 to Bradshaw, go left on Bradshaw, right on Folsom and it's on the left right near the Big O. I have been here numerous times and it's always great. You are asked right away if you want a BBQ table or a regular table. The BBQ table thing is really fun for a birthday party. We got a regular table this time. We got 12 different little bowls of kimchee and little appetizers. They were so good! Pickled daikon, sweet little dried fish, yams, and much more. And this is all free, although they normally give you around 9 little bowls of stuff, but we begged for more. Our party ordered BBQ beef, sea bass clay pot soup and sauteed sea bass. The sauteed sea bass is what I always order, so I got the soup this time. My sister said that the BBQ was excellent and very flavorful. It was just a huge sizzling platter of beef and a bowl of rice. I didn't try it cuz of mad cow (although I ate sirloin kibbee at Maalouf's last night). The sea bass soup was just OK because the soup was boiling in the clay pot and it overcooked the delicate sea bass a little bit. The sauteed sea bass platter is so fucking good, though. It is a heaping platter with perfectly cooked sea bass, soft tofu, potato, fish cake, and other vegetables in a rich red hot pepper sauce. I always trip out on how people just want to eat hamburgers and American food after I eat meals like this. It was so well balanced and healthy and spicy and so much better than some crappy place like, oh, I don't know, Icon or Esquire Grill to name a couple of places.

Monday, November 29, 2004

The big C

Wow. Thanks for the comments and the tip on Alexander. But was it homoerotic? I'm in it for the homoeroticism. That reminds me of a game that Charles plays where if you utter a funny phrase you claim that that's going to be the title of your solo album or autobiography. Mine could be "I'm in it for the homoeroticism". The other day on the phone to Charles I cracked myself up because I said "I'm trying not to care" and I said that that could be my autobio title. I think it's very appropriate given the current political climate.

Speaking of not caring, I had a really crappy K street experience the other night. I was walking up to the Crest on saturday night around eleven. I had just been thinking how great it is that I usually feel safe walking around alone when sober (not a good idea when drunk). As I walked up, I heard the sounds of an altercation. I looked across the street and saw a man and woman arguing loudly in front of the former Espresso Metro. Then he pushed her down. I spy a group of four large men in front of Pyramid Brewery. Ther were probably all over six feet and 200 pounds. I start to run towards them yelling "hey!". One of them mocked me by saying "calling a cab?". I gesticulate towards the fight and try to find the right words and as I'm doing that I see the man kick the woman in the face (this has all happened within a few seconds). I start to run across the street, but another group (one man and three women) has beat me. The rather small man has broken up the fight and one of the women is calling police on her cell phone. In contrast, the crowd of Yuppie dudes (one was wearing a fur coat, swear to G_d) barely interrupted their conversation and certainly did not rush to the woman's aid. Guess why? Because the two people who were fighting were homeless. I know, I know the homeless are so unpleasant I can see why they didn't want to deal. Better to just let them beat each other to death. Fact is, the woman was tiny and the man was twice her size. He was totally fucked up, she seemed sober, and she didn't even know him except from around K street. This was not some kind of mutual lover's quarrel, this guy could have picked anyone to beat the crap out of, she just happened to be closest. I wish I could tell those four guys how fucking bad they suck. I was livid with anger.

As this is unfolding, and to add to the general confusion, a passerby who must have witnessed the fight from down the street clocks the homeless dude in the head with his elbow and keeps walking. Homeless guy falls down and cuts his hand. I yell at the guy "what the fuck are you doing? Do you think that helped?" but he just keeps walking. One cop arrives and the very nice people who called the cops and helped to calm the woman down have to go so they leave. I could tell they were somewhat unfamiliar with downtown cuz they had called a cab to meet them on K and 11th, not realizing that the cab couldn't drive onto K st. I guess downtown probably didn't seem too revitalized to these people.

In short order, approximately 83 cop cars and a paddy wagon arrive. This is really unnecessary because all you have is one very shitfaced man, a crying woman, and me. The cops are somewhat belligerant right away. They treat the man and the woman brusquely, even though she has not done anything wrong. They seem to want to create the scenario that it was a mutual fight so they don't have to decide what to do and they can take them both in. I tell them I believe that they don't really know each other and that he was the aggressor, give them my name, and leave.

Fuck people who don't help others in need. Someday this will come back to them.

Tomorrow I will post a review of wonderful, wonderful Korea House and tonight I am eating at Maaloufs!

back to work

boy oh boy is it hard to come to work after four days off. i will try to blog later. not feeling it just now.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

What's your fantasy?

After months of panicky columns about how we better build the arena, like, now, or else, the Bee has finally decided to elicit feedback from its readers. No, not about whether we want a new arena or not, or how it should be paid for (I suspect that they know that most of the responses they would get would be negative), but about what our fantasy arena would be. As if any normal Kings fan or non-King fan is so excited about this arena deal that we sit around fantasizing about how great it's gonna be. Even those fans who are for a new arena know that they're being blackmailed by the Maloofs and the NBA. They're not stupid.

Anyway, fantasy arena...hmmm...How about an underwater fortress defended by genetically engineered, super-smart octopuses that could only be reached by swimming with an escort of superhot mermaids and mermen? And there'd be a special box just for me, with my name on it in big sparkly, no neon, letters. And the Kings would all be my friends (well, not Brad Miller) and we'd just hang out in my box getting stoned and watching episodes of the Chapelle show. And we'd totally bag on Slamson all the time. We'd light flaming bags of poo outside my luxury box and hide and then he'd come and try to stomp it out and get crap all over his fur suit. We'll just laugh and laugh. That would be awesome!

Or here's another one...how about an arena THAT THE PIECE OF SHIT MALOOFS AND THE NBA PAY FOR THEMSELVES WITHOUT DEVELOPING WILD LAND WHERE CREATURES ARE LIVING AND WHERE I COULD ACTUALLY AFFORD A FUCKING TICKET TO A GAME A FEW TIMES A SEASON! Well, I guess it doesn't hurt to fantasize but we all know that both of these arena plans have about an equal chance of coming true.

If you'd like to submit your fantasy arena idea, here's the address: fanfare@sacbee.com


Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Last word

The great thing about having a blog is that I get to have the last word. Thanks for the info Darin. That makes more sense if he posted it on his own personal site. I know, it's not like he trashed the show or anything, it's just that his criticisms were annoying. To me. Possibly not to other people. I know it was mean to run it with my little parenthetical mockeries, but that was fun for me and I have to take my fun where I can get it.


a bit more to say...

I really really really hope that this previous post does not lead to a lot of shit-talking commenting if some certain person happens to google their own name frequently. My blog is usually very friendly unless you are Heather Fargo or a Maloof. I do not know Cary Rodda from Adam, I just wanted to counter what he wrote by pointing out that others who were not friends with the bands enjoyed the show, too.

Let it die!

So I was just blogging about this and how I wished that someone would sent it to me so I wouldn't have to paraphrase, but here it is in all it's glory, written by one Mr. Cary Rodda on the sac indie list:
saturday tidbit
Last night I went to see Knock Knock/The Bright Ideas/The Nightmares at Old I. The first thing I noticed when I got there was that the order had been changed. Apparently someone in The Nightmares was going to be arriving late, so they closed and the other bands bumped up a notch. Didn't really seem to matter. (then why are you mentioning it?)
All the bands are friends and were OK with it, plus the crowd pretty much stuck around till the end.The Bright Ideas were a bit more ragged than the last time I saw them but that seems to go over well with the Loft crowd. (what "Loft crowd"? When was the last time the Loft even had a show?)They still gave a good set and were enjoyable. Knock Knock and The Nightmares have some great indie pop songs and played them very well...when they were playing. A characteristic of these Loft-band shows is lots of screwing around between songs. Again, their crowd seems to like that, but for a non-Loft-er like me it just seems pointlessly distracting. Not that I'm asking them to come out all polished and professional, but perhaps playing more music than bantering with your friends during your set might be a good idea.Whatever. (Ooh the dreaded literary device of whatever. That's so 2002. Whatevs is the whatever of 2004.)Those bands are gonna do what they do because their friends eat it up. And since they seem to have little ambition to do anything beyond playing for their friends, I guess they're OK with that. And the bands managed a pretty decent turnout for a Saturday night, so I can't complain from a booker's perspective (so why don't you complain from the perspective of someone who felt snubbed by the loft and won't let it die even though it's like eight years later?). It's not really a huge complaint with me anyway (It seems kind of huge. You've mentioned it multiple times now). Like I said, I liked all three bands' music. I guess I didn't get into all the in-joke banter because I'm not part of that group of people. Whattaya gonna do? (shrug) (shrug?!?) I still enjoy their music and I can tolerate the rest of the stuff that comes with it. (how big of you)

I would just like to mention, that as I blogged yesterday, a coworker that doesn't know anyone in any of the bands went to see this show and specifically mentioned that not only did she like the bands, but that they were being funny. So the jokes couldn't have been too inside or she wouldn't have gotten them. Please, let the idea of the Loft vs. anyone else die. I was the biggest dork in the world, from Lincoln, who didn't know crap about music and worshipped Morrissey, and if they accepted me, they couldn't have been too fucking snobby or elite.




Monday, November 22, 2004

there's more....

Something else, real quick. I'd like to add some slang to the Sacto lexicon. I'm like the E-40 of Sac here, although I didn't coin this, I'm not sure who did, probably Alec. Anyways, the new slang is Ju-On. As a verb. Like when something scary happens to you, you got Ju-On'ed. Also, now other people than me say "dirty thirty" for their thirtieth birthday. I believe Natalie coined this, but it was in reference to a month of dirtiness, not a thirtieth birthday celebration.

Also, I had to delete the comments from earlier. I appreciate them, but a certain Mr. Maxwell wrote something that could get my house bombed. Keep up the comments!

Knock knock gains a fan

It's too bad I missed that show (knightmares, knock knock, bright ideas) on saturday, but I had fun in SF. A woman I work with that lives downtown mentioned that she had seen a good show this weekend, and it turned out to be this one! And she specifically mentioned knock knock, so that's really cool. She said it was refreshing that none of the bands were styley hipsters.

Animal liberation front fucked shit up at a university in Iowa. An article by "happy rat" that is chock full of bullshit can be read here:
http://www.phillyimc.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/19/0812206&mode=thread
This was obviously an inside job by some undergrad that knows some tiny bit about research but not that much. It's so dumb how they say that animals are different than humans so that animals can't be used as scientific models. So not true. These dumbasses also released thousands of minks at a mink farm in Iowa this weekend. Last I checked, minks are not native to Iowa, and if any of them actually managed to survive, they would probably wreak havoc on the local ecosystem. Why don't they target the manufactureres of rat poison and mouse traps? Surely more rats and mice are killed by pest-killing companies and these devices than researchers kill every year. I'm all for informed and organized animal rights activism, but this is ridiculous.

Speaking of chock full o'bull, I tried to watch "what the bleep do we know" at the Crest to finally see what all the hype was about. It was such a piece of crap. I walked out after about half an hour. The dead give-away that these people were not reputable scientists was that their name and institutions were not given when they were talking. The lady that spouted mystical bullshit and looked like Zsa Zsa Gabor was JZ Knight, the lady that channels the 20,000 year old warrior from Atlantis. How do I know this? My mom was waaaaay into Ramtha in the late 80's so I got to see tapes of this crock strutting around, doling out platitudes in a fake Atlantis accent. Or maybe it was a real Atlantis accent, the world will never know.

not now!

Well, for some reason I'm not feeling very inspired to post this morning. Check back this afternoon.

Friday, November 19, 2004

New restaurant reviews

I just realized on my way into work that Prez. Bush will be in office until I'm in my mid-30's. Lame.

So, I ate at Icon last night. It looks kinda cool inside. It's giant. I don't know how many it can seat in its labyrinth of rooms, but I'd say it was about at one-fifth capacity on a thursday night at 8:00. I don't want to say this place is doomed, but our busboy was wearing a black cape and carrying a scythe. Anyway, we were seated by a young woman in a Ramones T-shirt whose breasts were entirely covered, much to my surprise. The other day when I stopped by just to take a quick look at the menu the two hostesses were showing more breast than a bucket of KFC. Today they both looked much less naked. We scanned the menu. To me, there were not many appealing items. Anna thought it was a good menu. I was not ravenously hungry, so I ordered the grilled ahi salad. It was nine bucks, so I expected it to be a dinner-sized rather than side-type salad. Grace got the blue crab sandwich, Anna ordered the pulled-pork sandwich. Our food took quite awhile, which I was happy about because we were talking the whole time. We didn't get drinks, but the wine list had quite a few wines by the glass, and you can even order glasses of Moet for, I think, 9 bucks. That's cool. My ahi salad was pretty tasty. The ahi was crusted with so many black peppercorns that it was really spicy and they were kind of hurting my teeth, I think they could stand to grind it a little finer. The dressing on the salad tasted good, but the greens were the standard supermarket mesclun (with lots of cilantro), about three slices of yellow pepper, and nothing else. The ahi could have used a little sauce, I wished that I had some wasabi around. Although good, the salad was boring and I was still hungry afterward. Grace and Anna's sandwiches both came with fries and a little bit of cucumber salad, similar to the kind that you get at Japanese restaurants. Grace's sandwich was open faced, which made it awkward to eat. Anna's sandwich was kind of a sloppy mess that she had to eat with a knife and fork. Grace's crab was really fishy (that sounds dirty). She contrasted it to a ginger crab she had recently at New Station and it suffered in comparison. She didn't like her fries and neither did I. They were really dark looking as if the oil was dirty and they were pretty soggy. She didn't finish her crab sandwich and as soon as her hunger faded from eating some of it she declared it "gross". Anna said that her pork sandwich was overly sweet. I tried it and the sauce made it taste exactly like a sloppy joe to me. Not really something I'd order at a restaurant. We all agreed that we would not order our dishes again, but that the space was pleasant and that we'd give it another try sometime. I'll let you know if I eat there again. It's possible there's a few delicious things on the menu and maybe we just ordered wrong, I don't know.

I ate at the Crepeville this weekend and I liked it. I didn't like my crepe, but I don't really like breakfast crepes so I shouldn't have ordered it. The potatoes were really good, though, and they give you the option of a bagel or toast if you get eggs. David Paul's Greek scramble was way better than my crepe. The coffee was not great but not bad. I'm really happy that there's another breakfast option in Sac now.

I found the craziest article on mad cow that I hope to write about sometime next week, so if you have a weak stomach, be warned.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Warning: this post contains dumb jokes

This morning in the break room I was reading last week's Bee with the story of the two Marines from Fresno that were best friends and were both killed at the same time in Iraq. Margaux had already told me about the part in the article where the mom of one of them relates how she was trying to call her son to tell him Bush won and that he would be so happy to hear this, but she could not get through to him and the next morning she found out he was dead. She related this without making any connection between Bush being president and her son being dead.

Speaking of Fresno, NPR reported today that many Californians are moving away from the coast and into inland cities because of skyrocketing housing prices, I already kind of knew that but I was stoked to hear that over half of all Californians are thinking of moving to another state because of this issue. This may sound harsh to be happy about this, but I would guess most of these people are probably not native Californians, and as a renter who may never be a homeowner, every person that moves away increases my chances just a little bit. Or maybe not, I never took Economics.

Speaking of the California heartland, a big shout out to Heather, who may be there right now. I just found out yesterday that Janet Leigh was from Merced. One of the google searches that led someone to my blog was "nolia clap song where Merced at?". Is there some local rapper who has inserted Merced into his take on "nolia clap"?

I wrote about this yesterday, but blogger ate it. I knew we were in trouble when doofy Maloof came out to back the Sheriff's land scam in Natomas to get the new arena built. This half-time interview was particularly irritating cuz it was mostly Grant Napear (or "G" as doofy Maloof called him) blowing Maloof on camera for being so rich. Not only was it front-page news in the Bee the next day, but Voison wrote an over-the-top endorsement and reminded us for the zillionth time that Arco is "creaking and cracked". Today it's front-page news again. The sheriff seems to have toned down his high profile on this scam. Maybe it would be unseemly for him to be spending time getting the arena built when he should be investigating why two of his officers killed an unarmed mentally ill man while his parent watched. The Bee's reporting on this issue is a bit confusing. Here is a sentence from yesterday's article, headlined "Doofy Maloof sez-new arena will be awesome!" "Landowners would reap the benefits of speedy development, and agree to contribute 20 percent of the proceeds - perhaps as much as $600 million - to pay for an arena." Here's a sentence from today's article, headlined "Sheriff sez-we better build this arena or my deputies will come to your house and kill you" "In return for quick county review, landowners would pledge 20 percent of the profits from the sale of their land to finance an arena - an amount expected to total at least $300 million." I guess the 600 million figure comes from whether or not we decide to gold-plate the arena and have the Kings wear actual jewel-encrusted crowns and purple velvet robes. I say go for it! It'll be awesome!

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

scary

Can't blog. Boss on rampage. Send help.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Mad cow!

I ate at Vince's last night. No, not Club Vince, although sometimes that does serve food (and by the way, Vince made the BEST STUFFED SHELLS EVER at the Heritage party), but Vince's in West Sac. We stepped in, and right away I heard a redneck looking dude say the N word. That was quite a shock. He seemed to be intoxicated and as we were walking past he was relating a story that involved him calling someone "pissboy". The place has some charm, it's dark inside which makes it seem a bit dingy. There is a bar in the restaurant and TVs showing sports. I think it would be a fun place to sit at the bar and watch a Kings game. Our waiter had giant biceps, there were cops behind us talking about the Steve Miller Band, the lady bartender was wearing an American flag sweatshirt-this is a very American place. Not too Italian. Anyway, the pasta dinners are ten bucks and they come with soup or salad, bread, and ice cream. I got a salad, which was really tasty for an iceburg salad. Michael got the soup, which I thought was bland. The little loaf of bread was warm and tasty. I tried to order the ravioli, but after inquiring if it had meat in it, I changed my order to spinach gnocchi. You would think that this question would have clued our waiter in to the fact that I didn't really want meat in my pasta. Nope. Apparently, the spinach gnocchi comes with meat sauce. Michael got the plain gnocchi. They both came with some tasteless white cheese baked in a thick layer on top. It didn't seem to be mozzarella. The gnocchi was overwhelmingly mushy and starchy. There was no way I could eat any of it without eating some small bits of ground beef. All I could think was mad cow. So if my brain turns to mush in about 10 years, I'll know where to trace it back to. This was probably not the fault of Vince's but about halfway through dinner my stomach started roiling. Perhaps the prions I had just ingested were fighting the helpful microbes in my stomach. I don't know. Mike liked the spumoni. All in all, I probably will never eat there again, although as I said, I would sit at the bar and watch a Kings game.

Then, I saw the Jay-Z movie "Fade to Black". I highly recommend this movie. Some of the concert stuff gets just a little boring, but the footage from the studio when Jay-Z was recording the Black Album is amazing. It's so cool to watch him meeting with all the different producers (Neptunes, Timbaland, Kanye West, Rick Rubin) and see the crazy creative process. When Hov hears a track he likes he totally spazzes out into this thing he calls the Rain Man as he starts imagining what he's going to say over the track. It made me sad to see a part where Slick Rick is backstage at Madison Square Garden but he's just helping Ghostface Killa put on his gold chains and he's not invited out on stage or anything. He's all dressed down in just a gray hoodie. Mike D has a cameo and dude looks so bad I thought he was Perry Farrell. Mike said that he heard he had hepatitus. Anyway, see this movie.

Ok, here's some stuff on the Sac Arts Co-op. I am going to donate some stuff for the yard sale. You can just bring stuff to sell if you want to do the same:

Mission Statement:
The Sacramento Arts Cooperative is a community based, volunteer run, non-profit organization. Our objectives are to provide a nonviolent, nondiscriminatory, drug and alcohol free resource center for music and the arts. We have weekly meetings and membership is open to everyone.One of our main goals is the creation of an all ages music venue that places respect and support of the performers as our highest priority. We plan to raise funds thru donation and grant writting with the purpose of buying a building in the downtown Sacramento area. Once our tax exempt status is established with the IRS this spring we plan to start writting grants and we are currently researching good building locations. We have many events planned to raise money and awareness for our cause this spring. So please, stay tuned.
News and Events- Saturday, November 20th, Rock and Roll Yardsale! At the corner of Freeport Blvd. and 2nd Ave. We'll have records, tapes, cds, musical equipment, rock band t-shirts, clothes, and much more! Again, all proceedes go to S.A.C.-
Saturday, November 27th, Thanks-for-giving fundaraiser show at the Distillery. Featuring such hot local acts as The Riff Randals, The Hostages, The Devastates, and a fourth band to be named later. Starts at 10pm, is 5 dollars, and (despite the irony/hypocracey) is a 21 and over show. Again, all proceedes go to S.A.C.
Membership and meetingsWe meet every sunday at 7pm in the downtown Sacramento area. Since we don't have an established location for our organization yet, our meeting place moves around quit a bit. If you'd like to attend a meeting feel free to contact us and we can fill you on the location.
ContactIf you'd like to contact us to share your ideas or become invloved with our organization try e-mailing us at sacramentoartscoop@gmail.com.website: www.sacarts.org

Monday, November 15, 2004

Icon doomed?

Here's a link for the bored: http://grouphug.us/ These anonymous confessions are strangely addictive.

Scott reminded me that La Fiesta (owned by the La Favorita people) is opening in the place of the Alhambra Grill. The excitement is building about this among some of my friends. If this place is like Favorita, it'll be the bomb. I like that there are fewer reasons lately for me to travel far from my neighborhood, now I have a close market and bank and Peet's, and with the Favorita here I won't have to travel to the Florin Mall area. The traffic in that area is horrible, but it is a good excuse to go to the secret thrift store. I wish there was a Vietnamese sandwich place downtown, too.

Strolled by Icon at 7:00 on a saturday night and it wasn't exactly packed to the gills. Perhaps this location is doomed.

I would like to post some info about Charles' arts co-op thing, so Charles, if you're reading, send it to me via email and I can post tomorrow.

monday party report

Yay! Luis' is coming back! I am so happy about this. According to Graswich, Kyotos is closing down (I've never eaten there before) and Luis Jr.s is opening in its place. So it will also be closer to my house! I can't wait to taste that chicken soup again. I hope this location will work for them.

R.I.P O.D.B. He would have turned 36 today. I still thought he might make a comeback. I guess posthumous comebacks are not unknown in hip-hop so maybe he still will. Rumors of his death circulated like wildfire at the Heritage party.

Speaking of the heritage party. Oy. Many will probably say party of the year. Due to that fact that I had party-hopping obligations that involved driving, I did not get as plastered as most and this hampered my revelry. Then again, Russian Jewish peasant women aren't really known as big partiers. I partied in my own way by sitting on the couch and worrying that someone was going to get sick or hurt. It was rather odd to see which heritages lived up or didn't live up to their partying reputations. The Germans imbibed very little, which is not characteristic. Sorry to the German in the kitchen who I accused of wanting to shove me in the oven. The homsi was one of the drunkest. Guess he is not an observant muslim. The non-Jewish Russian acquitted herself admirably. China held up her end and was heard later in the night to declare her country the next great superpower and that the rest of us are "all going down". The scot was as wasted as you'd expect. Mike R. Mike was voted best costume and his reponse was "what costume?". There was a weightlifting competition later in the evening, which the northwest logger won, of course. She just tapped her vast well of anger against the spotted owl and benched her way to victory. The prize for drunkest of all is split between the Finnish drunk punk (of course) and surprisingly, Brigham Young, who was heard earlier in the evening to claim that every woman at the party was a potential wife.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Glass Candy? More like Ass Candy

woah. Pitchfork just reported that the two new Bright Eyes singles debuted on the Billboard singles chart at #1 and #2, a feat not accomplished by anyone since 1997, when P. Diddy did it. That's crazy. I've never heard Bright Eyes, but I guess it wouldn't be hard for those singles to be better than that tired-ass sing-song phoned-in duet "my boo".

Speaking of Pitchfork, I have got to stop believing their hype and buying albums accordingly. I bought the DFA comp cuz they gave it such a high rating and it's OK but I wish I would have bought the new Trick Daddy album instead.

Yesterday I had the day off, so I thrifted and visited the towns of Marysville, Yuba City, Wheatland, Sheridan, and (my hometown) Lincoln. Marysville and Yuba don't seem to have changed that much over the years (at least compared to Lincoln). Marysville has made the standard stab at downtown revitalization by putting up a sign telling you about their historic downtown and installing some metal, I don't know what to call them, sculptural thingies across the streets of downtown. Sadly this revitalization has mostly resulted in the closing of thriftstores and the opening of overpriced antique boutiques. But maybe it has been good for the town, I don't know. There is a giant Salvation Army in Yuba city that is pretty good.

If you ever find yourself traveling on Highway 65 through Wheatland, I would recommend stopping at the Elkin's frostie. True, it's a dump and I just wanted to go there to relive high school memories, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only have they added veggie burgers to their menus, they're actually Boca burgers and not the standard gross Gardenburger patty that I was expecting. In fact, I thought it was meat and I was trying to take it back. The teenager behind the counter thought that I was a big idiot.

I'm weary today because I hit both Amateurs and Lala Land last night. Both places were lackluster, bordering on pathetic. I really, really wanted to like Amateurs. I want some night where I can actually dance, and I'm more likely to go out on a Thursday night than any other weeknight, but it was lame. I can't dance to that pseudo-gothic electroclash shit. I wish I could, but I just can't. It was six bucks to get in, and the well drinks are 4.75! That is too much. Glass Candy played and they were amusing for precisely 5 minutes. I hate being negative about this new night so let me reiterate that I was really hoping I would like it. Lala land was quite deserted and Larry seemed to be on DJ autopilot and played "Flashlight" for what seemed like 45 minutes. It's too bad that night is not catching on because I think the Blue Lamp is a pleasant place to kick it. As we were sitting at the new Cap G I was thinking that maybe if the influx of people and money into Sac cannot be stopped then maybe a good result would be more clubs and bars and maybe if enough of them open, at least one will be cool. Maybe?

This weekend is shaping up to be fun. Tonight there is a Feeling show at the Fox and Goose, and tomorrow is the Greek food festival and the Heritage party.


Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Goddamnit!

My boss just walked in while I was surfing the net and I flinched and jumped a fucking foot while making a small startled grunting noise (most closely sounding like Unyh). Why can't I just play it cool and switch over to my open Excel spreadsheet calmly so that I don't look like I just got busted. Do you think bosses see through the blatant transparency of the Excel spreadsheet window? It's not like she cares. She often plays solitaire in her office with the door open.

Anyway, apparently my picture is on page 30 of sorryeverybody. com if you have the patience to wait for it to load, you can skip right to 30 and see me in all my glory. Well, some of my glory.

Californication

Woah, I accidentally did some weird command and published this entry after I had just entered the heading "californication". Maybe I should just leave that as a cryptic entry. I wrote it because I'm listening to the Virgin radio online station and Californication is on. This song is so funny, but I like that Kiedis wrote a song about Cali. Has anyone seen his new pageboy with bangs haircut? I want to read his book when it comes out in paperback. And of course when the "Teaches of Kiedis" calendar finally comes out I will be first in line to buy it.

I went to that show last night and it was really fun. I hope Jeff has more shows there and that I find out about them. It was probably on the indie list but ever since I got burned there I never went back. That was the best when Dennis Yudt wrote "welcome to the indie list. Now shut the fuck up". He's so tough. And because I'm a girl and I'm not really interested in getting in a how big is your dick contest I did indeed shut the fuck up. He totally won! It's like he's an indie list gladiator or something, keeping off the riff-raff who aren't tough enough to make it on....this internet chat room thing where people talk about indie rock. Wow! Where did that come from? I guess I'm more bitter than I thought about that whole experience. And to think it all started because someone kept picking on my boyfriend and I wanted to defend him.

Right now the online station is playing "Laura" by the Scissor Sisters. This is a great song. Anyway, the kids playing the show were adorable and entertaining. I experienced one of my first "that guy is too young for me to think he's cute" moments. Scott sez "get used to it".

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

this just in....

So the other day my coworker took a picture of me for that sorryeverybody.com website that I linked to. I put on lab gear and made a sign that said scientists are sad (about Bush being elected). Apparently Heather saw it on CNN Headline news. That's cool! Unfortunately, I can't see it on the website cuz it's always crashed.

There's a show tonight that is recommended by Scott Miller, a man of discriminating tastes. It's Miko Mika. It's 812 in the alley between T and U (on 8th st. I guess?) It starts at 8:00.

Also, the list of Sac celebrity sightings grows with Natalie spotting Ving Rhames at the Sheraton Grand. Weird.

Pone be gone

I was musing this morning that all the dude neuroscience grad students have been cutting off their pones lately (that's short for pony tails for those of you not up on the slang these days). Perhaps the late 90's have finally arrived in the world of neuroscience fashion. To the ladies of neuroscience velvet is still the luxurious fabric of choice.

I was reading an interview with Sofia Coppola and she was talking about being influenced by Bill Owens suburbia photography while making the Virgin Suicides. He has an extensive website and the pictures are cool. It's here: http://www.billowens.com/index.htm

The new T street was inaugurated last night and it was a smashing success. The boys drank scotch, the girls drank sake bombs and the crowd was amazed by the virtuoso sandwich-making of one Joel Goulet. He did things with crackers that I never thought were possible.

There is a heartbreaking story in the Bee today: http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/11365575p-12280146c.html It sounds like these officers went out of control. This guy was barely bigger than me. He was tearing some boards off a fence, for God's sake, it's not like he had a knife. I feel so bad for his family. It was probably hard for them to call the police on him, and look what they did. As Graswich has been talking about lately, this only further illustrates the need for cops to coordinate with mental health workers in cases like this. I'm glad that ballot measure passed. I just hope it's implemented quickly and correctly.

I ate at Zelda's last night and it was delicious! I know people either love Zelda's or hate Zelda's, but I'm not a big pizza person and it's absolutely my favorite pizza. Roma's is a distant second. And the waitress was really nice this time, contrary to Zelda's rep.

There are so many parties this weekend! The party that's a must attend, of course, is the heritage party at U st. I just might be a Jewish American Princess, so I'll probably be offending myself all night, because I hate that stereotype, but it's more fun than dressing like a Russian peasant.


Monday, November 08, 2004

monday bits

Well, I didn't go to the Sikh parade because getting up early wasn't in my weekend agenda. I get up early five days a week, goddamnit!

To continue the ever-so-boring Celestin's chicken skin saga (I know, you've all been wondering if I did anything about it) I called Celestin's and told a manager about ye olde pile of skin. She was sympathetic, but said they do leave the skin on. I said, "I don't know that there is anyone who would want to eat that soggy skin". She said "I hear ya' there" but I doubt if there is any policy change in the future.

Me and Mike went to Laszlo's this weekend and it was fucking great. For those of you who don't know, Laszlo's is a smoked fish place in Old Sac. It's in those little food booths near the river (the ones that I guess were modeled on Pike's place market). Joe Laszlo smokes all the fish himself. We used to go there and get gigantic bagels piled with vegetables (tomato, onion, etc.) and your choice of smoked fish, and it came with chips and a pickle for like 6 bucks. Laszlo was dissapointed in us when we asked where his bagels were this time because he said he hasn't had them since January. We totally got busted as bad customers. No harm, though, we went across the street to that really weird coffee shop Steamers, got bagels there, and brought them over to Joe to pile up with fish. We got the peppered salmon. It was so juicy and flavorful I almost plotzed. Not cheap, though. Me and Mike got quite a bit of fish and it cost eleven bucks. It was worth every penny. We also got to witness some kind of old-timey sketchiness where it appeared that a guy dressed as a cowboy may have been selling antique pistols out of a wooden case. Add the constant cruising of custom cars with crazy sound systems, and you have the weirdness of Old Sac.

Gossip gossip gossip! Went to the Vicious prom on Saturday night and witnessed a triad of people frenching like mad. Two were boys (one of whom has acquired an unfortunate nickname that is derived from a Simpsons character and one is the type of gentleman you wouldn't expect to see doing such a thing) and the one girl was a less than enthusiastic participant. The former boy had moments before queried if he could perhaps persuade me to show him my breasts. When I politely declined his offer, he countered a moment later with the question "how about now?". Ah, demon gin speaks.

There is a minor Naked Lounge boycott going on right now. Seems one of the owners, who has been known to be a pretty rude dude, hired someone most of us know and fired him within a day or two of training. He also fired the other three people who were being trained at the same time. Seems he had to go with his gut instinct. Well, my gut instinct is that that guy sucks. From charging for water to busting regular customers for using too much half and half (for shame!), he is screwing up left and right. However, hanging out at Peet's sucks, so I will probably go to Naked from time to time.

Friday, November 05, 2004

Gumbo update

Jesus Christ! I just went to eat the leftovers of my gumbo and I picked out more skin than you see at an Xtina concert! I had enough skin to donate to a chicken burn ward! And what part of the chicken did these come from? Pho Bac would have rejected these parts, and that's saying something. God! I am so repulsed, yet I forced myself to eat it because it cost 13 bucks. Why am I so cheap? Now I feel nauseous.

Girly-man losers!

Old Governor Shwartzie was just quoted calling the Democrats "a bunch of losers". Wow, he's really elevating the rhetoric down at the capitol. I can't wait till he calls us pussies and faggots. If he was quoted as calling me lardass it would be just like high school. Or if he said, "Becky the secretary of state totally wants to ask you out" and the secretary of state said, "ewww, gross I do not".

Speaking of losers, how bout those Kings?

In the last couple of days I have seen the movies Birth and Saw and I can recommend both as good, silly fun. Especially Saw which is hilariously ridiculous (but disturbingly gross). Birth, while suffering from a preposterous premise, was shot really well. I'll look for other movies from this guy in the future. I guess he has just directed videos before this. By the way, WTF happened to Nicole Kidman's face? Did she have some kind of face/off face transplant? Or did her face get injected with fetal tissue of a baby bat, turning her into a hybrid of fruit-bat/starlet? She looks real weird.

Last night I ate at Celestins for the first time since it changed locations. We ordered appetizers of sweet potato fries and fried calimari (these were not my choices, I would never order fried calimari). The sweet potato fries were limp and yucky. I know that this dish can be much better because I've had the sweet potato fries at Junior's in Brooklyn (famous for cheesecake) and they were much better than these. The calimari was gross. It was also limp and some of the squids had these disgustingly long tentacles. They seemed to be deformed squids in which just one or two of their tentacles would be twice as long as the others. Maybe this handicap was the reason the squiddlies got caught in the nets. Anyway, I ordered gumbo, which I remember as being the only good thing at Celestins. They have an array of gumbo choices, but the weird thing is that the Celestins house gumbo isn't the traditional style gumbo that contains (I think) chicken, shrimp, andouille sausage and maybe some fish or something. The Celestins one had a nasty combination that escapes me now. So I ordered a custom gumbo with chicken and Kielbasa (cuz adding andouille sausage would have made this combo 15 bucks!). The base flavor of the gumbo was delicious. Really flavorful and spicy. The quality of the meat was another matter. The Kielbasa was your standard Pepperidge farms stuff. I should have sprung for the other kind of sausage. The chicken bits were all half skin and fat. Gross! Who wants a bunch of skin in their soup? My sister got a seafood kind of gumbo and she said the shrimp was the best part but that the scallop tasted like big bits of fat. I tried a bite of hers and it had salmon, which tastes weird in gumbo. Her boyfriend got a hamburger, which is actually a plate with two fair-sized hamburgers. They looked good and would be perfect to split, so I may try that sometime. That also came with sweet potato fries. All in all, pretty good, would have been better if I ordered better (next time I want to try the gumbo with just scrimp and andouille sausage), but pricey.

During the course of this meal I talked to my sister and her b.f. about why they didn't vote and it turns out my sister has voted once (I thought she never had, so I was glad to hear this) but that she just didn't get around to it this time. Her boyfriend, Joe, had an interesting perspective in which he thinks that everything is ruled by a vast billionaire conspiracy and is already decided so why bother. I pointed out that he could be right but it wouldn't hurt to vote just in case, and also that he could make a difference in local elections. He agreed and next election day I am going to bug both of them to vote. On that subject, here's a good website: http://www.sorryeverybody.com/ I hope more people post.

Thursday, November 04, 2004

search engine madness!

One feature I like on my sitemeter is that I can peek at the search terms people use that direct them to my site. Here's a list:
chowder poodle riverside
sammy chu’s closing
maloof girlfriend
vashti bunyan
reading 2004 chkchkchk pictures
not being worried about osama bin laden I’ve found the quote
paris Hilton benji hooter
what is middleschmertz?
mac dre slain
chris webber macking
mad dre halloween
darrell corti

Numerous people have been searching for Sammy Chu's and I'm glad they get directed to me. There were a couple of Maloof girlfriend searches. I assume they are from potential candidates checking out the competition. I come up first if you search for darrell corti, which is weird. The paris hilton benji hooter on is inexplicable.

Here's a funny rave from craigslist:
http://sacramento.craigslist.org/rnr/47802457.html
It almost seems like a joke, but not. There is also a Los Jarritos missed connection, which is nice.

Sikh parade!


sikh
Originally uploaded by becklerg.

This Sunday is the annual Sikh parade in Yuba city. Yuba City has about 10,000 Sikhs, and 40-50,000 people are expected for the parade, many of them Sikhs traveling from other parts of the country. It starts at 10:00. There will be 100,000 free meals served. I am going to try to go if a family obligation doesn't prevent it. I think that such a display of diversity will cheer me up after tripping on our new evangelical monoculture. Also, Yuba City has good thriftstores. When I was a kid growing up in Lincoln we would always go to Yuba City and Marysville to see bargain matinees because they had the closest movie theaters. Now, Roseville and Lincoln are practically connected because of sprawl, so Lincolnites can just go there.

Which brings me to my next topic. Tuesday, during the elections, when they would flash the local election results I saw the name Short for Lincoln City Council. I guessed that it was Spencer Short, a guy I went to high school with who was the best, and I was right. When I googled him I found out he has already served as mayor of Lincoln (I think in Lincoln the mayorship just rotates between city council members). He's only 29! It's weird, because he has been mayor and on the council during the time when Lincoln has been turning into a strip-mally piece of shit. He had a statement about his family living there for 60 years and how he wants to preserve his hometown, but I wonder if it's just lipservice. Perhaps I will email him.

Speaking of sprawl, the Sacbee is reporting that local voters approved all three growth measures on the local ballots, which will lead to tons of new development and environmental damage. Good job, confused voters. And way to strike down the three strikes initiative and approve the DNA database. Don't the people of California know anyone who deals weed? Do they realize that their friendly neighborhood weed dealer could be at risk because of these initiatives? Great, let's collect sperm from every person who has ever been caught with a little bit of meth (speaking of Yuba City) but god forbid someone should tax your cell phone. I give up.

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

help me stevie


stevie
Originally uploaded by becklerg.

I have nothing to say. I just wish that instead of having to be at work I could stay home and listen to Stevie Wonder records because I seriously think that it might be the only thing that would make me feel a little bit better.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Old ass chimp


sam
Originally uploaded by becklerg.

Damn, Sam the chimp at the Sac zoo is 56 years old! This story broke my heart. He's been in captivity since he was three! In addition to noting that he rises at dawn from his bed of burlap sacks, the Bee stands on some shaky scientific ground and states that, "Like people, they have large brains, which means they can be very intelligent. They have thumbs, can see color and live within complex social structures. Scientists have shown chimps to be capable of thought, abstraction and even emotions, including happiness, fear and despair." Well, kinda. A big brain doesn't necessarily equal intelligence, and happiness, fear, and despair are words that humans created to describe human emotional states, but anyway, that's one old-ass chimp.

R.I.P. Mac Dre. V-town rapper Mac Dre was slain in a drive-by in Kansas City. I know Michael got to meet him once for some reason, I'll have to find out what the story is. In other rap-related news, the Biz told me that R. Kelly is now out of the "Unfinished Business" tour, so I'm pretty sure I won't be going unless Jay-Z drops the prices.

Well, I believed the hype (just like when I bought all those beanie babies) and I went to vote at 7:00 am fearing long lines. There was absolutely no line. There were some adorable old people, though. The best part was when the septugenarian called over the octegenarian to help her try to use the electronic vote-counting machine. Guess what? It was already broken. I was assured that someone would be by to fix it later. I have purchased a bottle of cava (Spanish sparkling wine) to open tonight when it is announced that Kerry has won. I have also implanted a small cyanide capsule in one of my molars so if Bush wins, I can simply bite down and end it all. Just kiddin'!

So the Kings cut Bluthenthal. I'm bummed. I was gonna get a Bluthenthal jersey. Now the Maloofs will have to scrape by without my 75 bucks. In other Kings news, I guess the Kings took out a weird full-page ad in the Bee today (I couldn't view it online) assuring everyone that they really love each other alot and stuff. Methinks they doth....you know the rest of the cliche.

Graswich said in his column yesterday that people are complaining about the silver horse in front of the new Safeway. To those people I say: sure it's kinda tacky, but imagine how cool it will look to teens frying on acid. I stared at it for like thirty seconds while I was sober and I could have sworn the creepy glass eye was moving. Viva la silver horse! Viva Sam the chimp!


Monday, November 01, 2004

Monday malaise

Hey check it out-this total D is trying to visit every Starbucks in the world. Here's the section on the Sacramento area: http://www.starbuckseverywhere.net/Sacramento.htm Horrifying. This person likes Starbucks and is not making any kind of political statement with this website. And she wants you to send her money to continue her quest!

The Sacbee continues to beat the arena drum. Last week they had some major help from the NBA commissioner when he mentioned the need for a new arena in Sac in a conference call to sportswriters. Thanks for the reminder commissioner, we done plumb forgot bout that whole thing in the solid week since it was occupying the front page daily. Then, today the Bee waxes nostalgic about the glorious time when we first got the Kings and Sacramento started to come out from under our shameful inferiority complex. It was soooo embarassing just being a pleasant small town with nice trees and affordable houses. Where was our P.F. Changs? Well, that restaurant chain wasn't in business yet, but if it had been, it never would have come to our backwater burg. The Bee tells the real story of the Kings franchise if you read between the lines in this article, although it's not the main point. Here it is, as I see it: Lukenbill buys Kings for 10.5 million in 1983, sells for 140 fucking million dollars in 1992. Not bad. Owner Jim Thomas then sells to the Maloofs in 1999 for 247 million dollars. A profit of 100 million dollars in 7 years. These are the owners that have been crying poorhouse this whole time and claiming the Kings don't make money. These are the people that have been holding our city hostage to their interests. How much do you think the Maloofs could sell the Kings for right now if they wanted? Why do you think they want a new arena? It will just exponentially increase the value of their team. They should pay the majority of the cost if a new arena is built. They will make the majority of the profit off of the deal if they sell the team.

My Halloween suffered from the New Year's Eve syndrome. Trying to force the fun led to not much fun. I continued my streak of embodying the women in rock on Halloween (last year=Ronnie Spector) by being both Courtney Love (friday) and Meg White (saturday). Margaux made an excellent Jack White in a grotty black wig that had been on the floor of my car since last Halloween. I missed all the bands at the Halloween cover show and the next night went to this horrendous party at 24th and P where we stayed exactly as much time as it took to walk upstairs and right back down. I could smell fighting and aggression in the air. I heard there was a really fun warehouse party right near my house but I missed it and finished out the night at club Vince debating the existence of God (?) with people.