lates

I'm leaving now and I'll be in Mexico by tomorrow afternoon. Maybe I'll post, if not I'll be back on the 13th.

fuck roseville dining

Believe it or not, the reason I didn't post yesterday is that blogger wouldn't upload my screen captures from the Woody Allen movie "Interiors". I was surprised to find when I started watching this movie that I had seen it before, probably in the last couple of years. Maybe I was stoned when I watched it? It's pretty Bergman-y, but without the intense shock of Bergman, even though he tries to bring it at the end. I mostly enjoyed it for the interiors (duh) and the clothes. The costumes were done by Joel Schumacher,, later director of such gems as St. Elmo's Fire.

Here are the three sisters, looking very beige.
Here's cutie Diane Keaton sporting a horrible grown out perm. I remember my mom often having this style. She would get perm after perm, hate each one, let it grow out, and then get another one. I wonder if perms will ever come back big? Answer: someday.

Young Sam Waterson was very cute, especially in contrast to Keaton's husband, the slimy bearded guy who tries to rape her sister. I just checked imdb. His name was Richard Jordan, and he died in 1993.

Here, the mousy sister (Mary Beth Hurt) is wearing a coat that I covet. There is a lot of curly hair peeking out.

And, on an irritating note, here is a terrible, terrible article from the Bee about a new restaurant in Roseville. Another b.j. for big business. This time a big business from the jerkoff who foisted P.F. Chang's on the world. They don't even mention the food until almost the end, it's clearly not the priority. This kind of shit drives me nuts. Here's a representative quote:

"We're building (another restaurant) just down the street right now," Platt said. "Prime steaks and Hawaiian seafood. Dinner only. Very high end. It's going to be the most expensive restaurant to ever hit Northern California. And we have another restaurant planned after that."

Isn't that cool that it's going to be the most expensive?

hopheads

On saturday I went to the Rubicon's 20th anniversary celebration, which they celebrated by having 20 hoppy guest beers on tap. My favorite was the Deschutes Hop Trip. The Sacramento hop heads were outside with a table and a silly hat that was supposed to look like a hop blossom (if they have blossoms). Some of the people outside had been there starting at nine am (we got there at around 4). That would be cute except we heard one guy talk about hoping he could make it back to El Dorado Hills. Here's hoping he didn't crash into anyone and kill them! I hope that the Rubicon has more events with guest taps, as their beer is as nastay as ever.

I've written about these two places before, so nothing new under my sun but...

I went to Edokko II the other night and got the tan tan men, and I have to reiterate that their ramen blows Shoki out of the water. Give it a try if you've only been to Shoki. I'd be interested to know if people agree or disagree.

Also, I went to Rolle again for lunch and even though I felt very tantrumy (inside) to find that they had run out of baguettes AGAIN, I got the salad nicoise with poached salmon and it was fucking GOOD. The mustard vinaigrette is delicious. I also got the gratin of the day (red potato) and it was sooo rich and the dusting of herbs de provence was perfect.

viva the free box

Man, sacramento-dwelling chef Joshua Ploeg really came through. He catered a brunch for me that over 25 people were at without breaking a sweat, everyone loved the food, and there were a ton of scones and biscuits and cookies leftover. One of the best things he made this time was a crazy curried banana/fake egg salad finger sandwich thing, which sounds gross but was delicious. There were some fake bacon/fake cream cheese rolls that I hear were really good but they were gone too fast for me to get one. If you have any type of event like this, baby shower, birthday party, rehearsal dinner, hell I'm pretty sure he could handle a wedding probably, email him. travelinechef@gmail.com Unfortunately, he rarely checks his email these days, but if you have any work to throw his way, comment on the blog and I can put you in touch with him. I have his cell number now.

I hear that local entrepeneur Olivia of Olipom is starting up a new business. And she's going to buy and sell clothes ala Crossroads. This is very exciting and seems sure to prosper. I'm going to have to stop giving away my thrift store finds to friends and make some money on that shit. jk!

TJIF!

Alright, Heckasac quit the blog again so this is Miller with the real last post ever - SCHEME! - she's busy & she asked me to post about the show at Delta tonight. The order will most likely be Nice Smile, Coconut Coolouts, Bananas, Tyvek. Delta gets cranky about the shows going late so please heed the 9:00 start time if you wanna catch the whole thing. This show will be all ages, packed & fun & it's only $5. Plus they have good brews. Bananas may very well be playing mostly new stuff since we're just finishing up recording the new record which has somehow taken us four years to do. Nothing gets the audience pumped like new songs they've never heard before right? RIGHT?! That's what I thought. And we'll have some ultra-rare Japan tour shirts for sale that the Japanese kids didn't want because they have Japanese writing on them & not some random english like "Banana Cat Gotcha!" which would've sold like mad I'm sure. So yeah, be there.

everly bear!

dudes, make sure to check teaches of kiedis today.

davis shmavis

I went to the wednesday night farmer's market in Davis yesterday for the first time. Of course it would be awesome if Sac had something like that in addition to all our other markets around town. I got some bland Indian food and finally got to try one of those gourmet popsicles I've heard about, poached pear and brandy.

I also checked out this weird wine shop (Valley Wine Co) on 4th and G in Davis that MH clued me in to. I've passed by it a thousand times on my way to the co-op and always thought it wasn't open to the public. But it is, although there are tons of cardboard boxes obscuring the front entrance and you have to go in through the side. They have an interesting selection. I got a 2004 Alsacian blend for 11 bucks, and smiller got a 2004 Fuller's vintage ale that I don't think they realized they had, it had just been sitting in the fridge for two years. The guys who run it are nice.

halloween

omg! the same woman (who I don't know but this was in vice) who came up with this timothy treadwell costume last year:

came up with this costume this year:

brilliant!

franzia white zin?

Everyone and their sister knows about the Bananas show this friday, right? It rules that there are so many good bands on the bill, however it sucks that there are 4 of them. Too many! I think the Coconut Coolouts are touring with Nice Smile, so that's why they're playing. I heard that the Bananas might play first.

MD posted something about wine on his "food" blog (surprise) about the rankings of wine ordered at restaurants and after the nasty, nasty list of the top ten there was a sad, tragic, heartrending, tearjerking fact :

Overall, chardonnay easily was the most popular varietal at restaurants, accounting for nearly 43 percent of sales, and 41 of the 105 wines in the magazine's complete list\

why people, why? free your palates! you can't even chalk this up to cost because there are so many affordable and delicious whites on the market

preservationist nitpickers

Gballs tipped me off to the fact that those green clothes donation boxes all around town are run by some weird cult. Or maybe just scammers who sell the clothes? Either way, don't drop your clothes off there. Donate them to the salvation army or goodwill, or if they're cool, give them to me.

Today in the bee, Breton has an axe to grind against all us nit-pickers, historical preservationists, and "nincompoops" drowning out "viable visions deserving of support". Yes, that's right, he thinks that all of us common citizens should just shut the fuck up, lay back, and enjoy whatever Thomas Enterprises chooses to do to us. And why? Because they've already spent $75 million (according to him) on the railyards project. So it follows that laying out that much cash means no one should try to block or even question any of their plans. Got that? Here's how he wraps it up:

Otherwise, the city of our civic dreams will never come to pass.

"our" civic dreams? Are you sure about that, Marcos?

dumb bitch

You know what annoys me so much about that stupid joke that Halle Berry made? This.

hawks?

In his review of Hawks in Granite Bay, MD tries to bust (albeit gently) the owners for not having sierra foothills wine! That makes their wine list a refreshing change from every other wine list in the Sacramento area. Even Chez Panisse has a mostly Euro wine list, despite Alice Water's recent disavowal of imported mineral water that caused such a buzz. I concede his point that if they're going to have five zins on the list, they probably might as well have one from the sierra foothills area. Unfortunately, the don't have their winelist online, but their menu looks delicious.

angry letter

The chef of Stonegrill wrote a detailed letter to SN&R refuting KW's recent bad review. He makes some valid points but he is missing the forest for the trees. I'm sure he has read his yelp reviews, and they mostly say the same thing. He brings up that she should have eaten there more than once, and that's something that I find really hard, mostly in the context of a negative review. Sure, Frank Bruni at the NYTimes eats at a place multiple times, and for lunch and dinner, but he probably has an unlimited budget. That's not the way it is at publications like the SN&R or, say, Midtown Monthly. Even if I had the time to do that, if it's a fine-dining place I wouldn't have the money. I've had this on my mind a lot because I'm reviewing a fine-dining place for my December column and I don't think I can afford to eat there more than once but I am really dreading the prospect of not liking it and having to give it a mediocre or negative review based on one visit. There's a very good chance it will be wonderful, and it won't really matter. Food reviewing is soooooo subjective (and of course all reviewing is) so that's why star systems don't make sense to me at all. You're placing this black and white rating on an experience that has so many factors. Reviews should be enjoyable to read and entertaining, and have a clear point of view, but they can only be a guideline, not some kind of biblical pronouncement.

Hey! Look over here! Bill Burg was on Insight with Jeffrey Callison last week talking about his Southside Park book. I hear the book is really good, Beers has it.

Speaking of Beers', Queen Sheba on Broadway has this awesome Hakim "stout" (it's not really a stout-style beer, just a dark beer) that is really spicy and fresh and juicy.

AP reviewed Maalouf's (which is great, I mean great that he reviewed it and of course the food is superb). Here's a couple of definitions he busts:

We began with a bowl of hummus ($5.50), which is pureed garbanzo beans (chickpeas) mixed with tahini (sesame paste), accented with garlic and lemon juice, and topped with olive oil.

Falafel is deep-fried, hush puppy-lookin' croquettes of mashed garbanzo beans, rich with the aromas of spices.

Is there anyone left in the world besides toddlers and the extremely elderly who do not know what hummus is?

tattletale

The stupid old narc Bee wrote a FRONT PAGE article yesterday in which two hard-hitting investigative journalists revealed that state workers are editing wikipedia pages on their work computers. Nobody likes a tattletale, sacbee. I'm sure you are all working hard 40 hours a week and don't have time to do things like, say, check blogs or anything. Yeah, I'm a little sensitive about this because I have an office job and everybody knows the deal with office jobs, there is downtime, and you make it bearable by surfing the internet and emailing your friends. Stateworkers are human, don't fuck up probably one of the only things that makes their jobs bearable. I don't see the big deal with editing a wikipedia entry on porno either, you prudes. Wikipedia contains text only, not pictures, so it's not like they're sexually harrassing others by looking at the page or something.

Congratulations go out to our local Rubicon Brewing Co. for winning a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in the Belgian-style sour ale category for their high mountain cherry ale. This is like the academy awards of America beer, so this is a big deal. Unfortunately, they don't have this beer on draft, but they do have plans to bottle it soon, and I can't wait. I've really been enjoying American sour ales lately, particularly those brewed by Russian River...but you'll have to read about my visit to Russian River Brewing in the next Midtown Monthly.

explain

What is this? Is it an ad? It's certainly not a review. I guess it's an article informing you about the existence of the I Love Teriyaki chain. Thanks sacbee.

Can someone read Heyamoto's column from yesterday and explain the Steve Cohn item to me? Also, can someone attempt to construct a sentence more awkward than "Good thing Austria hadn't come calling"? A prize to anyone who does.

friday morning george michael

I'm at my desk smooth-rocking out to the George Michael song "Jesus to a child". That reminds me, Joel should reprise his George Michael performance for this years smooth rock themed "Halloween" show and I can try to rip his clothes off again! George Michael's website (from whence the tunes emerge) informs me that he has no U.S. tourdates scheduled but that he is going to be playing an angel on a new U.S. TV show? Oh God, the clip is sooo horrible. George, put the blunt down and schedule a tour, please!!!!

Remember how great this video was, when he had just been busted for having sex in that bathroom, and then he has a song about having sex outside and the bathroom turns into a disco and everyone is making out and the cops are busting them and then the cops start making out! Somehow I think that noone reading this is going to enjoy this as much as I do.



The new Fiery Furnaces record is out, Widow City. I've listened to half of the double album and I like it a lot. Matt Friedberger is a genius. They're playing in SF on the 19th.

Sy Hersh, no less

Wow, I'm impressed the nmiller got an interview with Sy Hersh and he really held his own! It's cool that a little bit of his personality emerged in this interview, more so I think than in his recent interview on Fresh Air (which scared the crap out of me!). Read this article or the one in the New Yorker, it's terrifying but people should be aware. Not that we can stop the Bush administration from bombing Iran if they want to. I felt so bad for Hersh when I read how much he hates reporting on this story, but he feels compelled because he doesn't trust Bush to not do it even though it's going to have a catastrophic outcome.

The onion blog (which has lots of good content) just posted a comments policy. The Bee should follow this model. Does the Bee even have an official policy on their comments?

introducing...ganglians

Just yesterday I was saying that if someday I need to write a profile of Vanoni, and lo and behold, he's on the cover of the News and Review! It's about damn time. The News and Review continues their streak of nudity and semi nudity with a picture in the article. Of course as usual, it's a chick. Can't we have some equal opportunity nudity here?

No one is supposed to mention how I said I was going to retire, because then I get embarrassed about it. Can't a woman change her mind?

I checked out the two dollar bar food McCormick and Schmick's happy hour thing yesterday. The place looks like a hotel banquet room inside, which really surprised me. I thought it was really fancy, but the cheap tiling and green carpeting (you should never have carpet in a restaurant, never!) make it look kind of crappy. Between four and six, and from 930 to close, they offer two dollar Coors Light or Bug on draft, and some food items for two bucks. There's a two drink minimum, which seems to be enforced, but they don't have to be alcoholic drinks. Long story short, the food was pretty mediocre. I mean, of course it was, it was two bucks! You can get two oysters on the half shell for two bucks, and when I asked which kind the waitress started to say it's whatever they need to get rid of, and then tried to pretend that's not what she was saying. Of course that's what they are, they're two bucks! You know what else they were? Room temperature. Not appetizing. They didn't make me sick or anything, they just weren't delicious. Everything else was just OK, too. But they do have a hamburger AND fries for two bucks, so if you're really broke, have at it. The best thing I had? A Moscow Mule, which was like 8 bucks.

The house show last night was fun and really well attended. A whole new generation of kids, and they're not bad! The only thing I object to is the unecessary hats. I'm all for hat nerding, but when it's warm inside and everyone is wearing knit hats, I just fixate on the fact that I know their heads are getting all hot and sweaty and why not just take the hat off at that point? The highlight was a new Sac band that was good and I've never seen anyone in it before in my life. They're called Ganglians. We were tripping on them and wondering what their influences are, and I guess you can tell from their myspace.

gaping hole

Too...many...jokes...about....headline...

I just was looking at a Bee story where they allowed someone in the comments to call two black people "monkeys". Oops, some overt racism slipped through their guidelines that usually only allow covert racism! Not really a proud moment for the Bee.

The comments on this one are making me laugh, though. Man, Breton is getting his chops busted left and right!

Holy shit! And look at the comments on this Heyamoto column!

show tonight

No time to post! Go to that show tonight, Woodhouse's new band is playing.

Wed, 10/10 - EAT SKULL (PDX) + MAYYORS + GANGLIANS23rd & L House, Sacramento - 8:00 SHARP, $5 donation, all ages Best new PDX band a'la Times New Viking meets Hunches, sorta...really!

hello?

It makes me sad that no one is even going to guess about the source of those black and white screen grabs. That is from the 2000 loft Halloween show theme "no U.S., no U.K.". That's the amazing Bushwick Bill puppet on the bottom there.

The Head needs some help, she wants to know where she can get her 1980 Honda Express moped fixed.

someone should have told me

How come no one told me the Fevers are the best? I'm so behind the times. And Mario put out one of their records?

There's a house show tomorrow that is going to be really good. Why? I'm not sure, but I'm going to go anyway. Here are the details on it.

I missed the Aguirre screening and instead stayed home (after a decidedly bland and lackluster meal at Shoki Ramen House, they really let me down this time) and watched a collection of Herzog shorts. The first one, The Great Ecstasy of the sculptor Steiner (which is a hilarious example of Herzog trying to impose his own ideas on the documentary he made about ski jumping, he only show the guys sculptures for 2 seconds), about Steiner is fucking amazing, with really stirring music by Popol Vuh

Here's Walter Steiner, he's very self-effacing yet a complete badass
Here's Werner!
There are tons of super slo-mo shots of people flying on skis, and some harsh sl0-mo crashing.

It ends with Steiner reading a poem that he supposedly wrote about lying naked on a rock, and I guarantee you that Herzog wrote it.
The next movie is about the 1976 world championships of auctioneering, and though it goes on too long (30 minutes of listening to that nasally, auctioneering type of voice as they auction cattle) it was still really good and it was quite emotional at the end because they guy who wins is so stoked.
The third short is Herzog and his crew on some small Caribbean island that has been evacuated due to a volcano that is about to erupt and is spewing poisonous gases, so of course as soon as he about it he rushed right there. At one point he supposedly has to flee from a descending poisonous cloud, but I think he might be exaggerating.

screengrab mystery

Not much time to post so here are some crappy pictures. This is Underground Railroad to Candyland, an excellent band. They got those costumes at the Don Quijote store in Tokyo when they were on tour with the Bananas. I would write "good times" right now except I hate when anyone says or writes good times.


Here's the Bananas making all the customary rock faces.
Here's a band I saw saturday night at El Rio, the Rantouls. They were fucking great! Super bubblegum. That guy on the right is Gavin of Fevers fame, and more importantly he is the similar guy of cassingle fame! Look at that guy on the left, he was born to have that haircut. It was his destiny.

I'm hoping this video will embed properly.

You know my new thing to get excited about? Besides George Michael? Screengrabs. Here are a few from a secret source. Can you guess where they're from? You can click on them for more detail. The bottom one is a big clue. And here's another clue,"my eye!"

amusement?

To amuse those of you still left at work (i'm catching the train in 20 minutes myself) here's a few fake yelp reviews:

this is obviously to pad the star rating of arpeggio, which has mediocre reviews, and just got pretty trashed by KW recently in the SN&R. Actually, looking at their page I see that their ratings aren't bad, but I think that review by Jonathan F. might be fake, too. The dead giveaway is people with only one or two reviews.

This place is flooding yelp with fake reviews today.

This guy's review of Stolichniy isn't fake, but I like how his other review is for his company.

all right, that's all I got for now, maybe "amuse" was a little bit strong.

Russian AND China

Wow, has anyone read the New Yorker article on Garry Kasparov (written by New Yorker editor, David Remnick)? It's looooong so I'm not done yet but it's fascinating. Read this account of the first Karpov v. Kasparov championship match:

This first Karpov-Kasparov championship match, which began in September, 1984, coincided with my first trip to Moscow, and I attended several games at the Hall of Columns, the stately venue where Stalin had lain in state, thirty-one years earlier. Every morning, the two men entered from the wings and walked to a chess board at center stage. They sat hunched over the pieces for hours at a time, inches from each other, breathing the same overheated air, Karpov staring at his position, Kasparov staring at Karpov, or, at times, clawing at his hair, rolling his eyes, expressing his emotions with the eye-bulging theatricality of a silent-film star. In the balcony, nearly everyone was pro-Kasparov. They loved his anti-establishment glamour, his audacity at the board even when he lost.
Karpov dominated Kasparov in the early games, taking a four-games-to-none lead. He needed only two more wins to retain the title. The crowds began to thin out. Then Kasparov did something astonishing: in the course of a championship match, he learned to play at a new level. In Game 15, a turning point in the match, Karpov was up a pawn but could play only to a draw after an astonishingly long game—ninety-three moves. Kasparov was figuring out Karpov the way an astute hitter, after repeated, chastening strikeouts, figures out a pitcher. The next eleven games were draws. In Game 27, Karpov won once more, but, again, Kasparov kept forestalling the end—twenty more drawn games came and went, brutal and wearing—and then, suddenly, he took Games 47 and 48. It was now February. The score was five games to three, but the advantage had turned. Finally, the tournament authorities called it off, claiming that both players were exhausted. Kasparov was convinced that the chess establishment, backed by the Soviet authorities, had rescued Karpov. He was furious, but he had learned his opponent thoroughly. He had mastered him. The next year, again in Moscow, Kasparov won the title.

This article also made me realize that they are so many cool Russian words, especially political ones, like apparatchik. Kasparov is half Armenian and half Jewish, a great combination. And speaking of Jews....I had a Jewish feast last night. I went to Teremok (which I guess is in Foothill Farms? I'm not sure what neighborhood that is) to try to get chopped liver, and they were out but instead I got dense wheat bread, pickles, and this lovely delight:
It's a whitefish salad and it actually tasted a lot better than it looked. It was potatoes and onions and fish and sour cream (I think). The pink is not frosting, it's beet juice and sour cream. Here was the full spread. I made blini with caviar and sour cream. Blini are really tasty and hearty and fun to make. They are yeasted, so it's fun to watch it rise and bubble, and they have half and half buckwheat flour to regular, so they have a rustic, whole-grain taste.
GW labored over delicious potatoe latkes, the Armeniac made a refreshing cold borscht, and BR MADE this beautiful challah, if you can believe that!
And then we watched a video of Wham live in China (follow this link for some good examples of what a knob Andrew Ridgely is) and I peed my pants when I saw this:

awwww Jimmy, oh yeah!

While I was checking NRBQ's website to see if they are playing any shows, I came across this picture of Terry Adams with the ageless Betty White at her 83rd birthday party. Did his band play? I'm going to pretend that NRBQ played at her request. And that they played the Golden Girls theme song.

In more music news, Kiedis had his kid. A couple of websites are reporting that the kid's name is Everly B. but I don't buy it. Do you think Everly B. stands for Everly brothers? Is B. the kids middle name? Smiller predicts Hillel will be his name and MD is voting for Ozone. It's gotta be Hillel! Or does he think it's bad form to name his kid after someone who OD'ed?

In other other music news, not only are Knock Knock playing in SF on sunday, the Bananas are playing on friday at Kimos with Underground Railroad to Candyland, who I really like a lot. C'mon, their drummer is named Jimmy, whaddya want?

It's gonna be a rock and roll weekend, because the Rock and Roll Adventure Kids are playing at Delta of Venus on saturday. um, wait a minute, is that show cancelled? I don't see it on the calendar or on their myspace.

you called it

Well, I'm retiring again. Why? You guessed it, because I can dish it out but I just can't take it. And by "dish it out" I mean write fun, informative blog posts, and by "take it" I mean the heaps of praise and adulation, such as being voted third best blog behind some neo-fascist who only posts every month or so. And by "retire" I mean that I have tomorrow off. See you on thursday!

making crap, buying crap

First things first, the new midtown monthly is out, I hear that Skinner is on the cover. That probably means there are some paintings of demons with boners inside. That also means that I can finally reveal that I reviewed Udupi Cafe, in Rancho. This place is the bombdotcom (I put that in to make smiller uncomfortable). Go there, now, and bring me the lentil curry. You can just pour it through the mail slot at my house.

Here are my latest culinary victims. They are Cornish game hens. Remember those from the 80s? Well like many things from the 80s they are back. I should have put Ray Bans on these game hens and then they would have been the height of style.
These are braised game hens. Avert your eyes from the overcooked haricot verts. I got lazy and just threw them in the braising liquid (wine, stock, shallots). An aside-why are small green beans with a french name so fucking expensive? They can't really be grown in France, can they? If so, why can't we grow them here? Are we going to let the French show us up like this? The hens are filled with my patented stuffing, which contains raisins, walnust, apples, celery, and lots of sage. No chicken livers because I can't find a regular chicken liver supplier. Where are they going? To Larry Hagman?
I was scouting a new place to write about on sunday, so I drove out on 80 east to watt. Near the airbases I saw a sign that said estate sale and followed it back to a warehouse area. Ella and Liv take note, it is a warehouse chock full of interesting old crap including a stagecoach and millions of clown paintings.

I didn't really capture the breadth of the items here, because I was worried the proprieter would get mad at me, but they bought the estate of Milos "Sparky" Begovic, who owned numerous Sparky's casinos in Nevada and Lake Tahoe. I guess the mob bombed his casino in Lake Tahoe, which prompted his move to Nevada. He was a collector of clown paintings, boxing memorabilia, horse racing memorabilia, saddles, and probably more. The lady working there said that they have ten more trailers of stuff and that they have bought the Ponderosa Ranch set materials from whatever TV show that was.

the end of an era

Something so crazy, so insane, so bonkers, so nutty, so shocking, so tragic, so earth shattering, so off the hook, off the chain, and off the wall happened this weekend that I just had to come out of retirement and tell you about it.

I had to pay to get into Tower yesterday.