cover story

BR scored the cover of the News and Review! And a sexy cover it is.

Man, Democracy Now has been on a roll lately. I was listening to yesterdays show on podcast, and in the middle of a roundtable about publicly financed stadiums (participants included Dennis Kucinich and the guy who wrote "field of schemes), which in itself is awesome, Juan Gonzalez interrupted it to ask Kucinich about his impeachment hearing for Bush. Then he played this long clip from The View in which Joy Behar and Barbara fucking Walters were busting Nancy Pelosi's chops about why she won't call for impeachment! Pelosi tapdanced around it in a ridiculous way. They had a roundtable about the newspaper industry last week that made me really sad. I feel terrible for people who are trying to make their living as journalists.

boycott good eats, obvs

Over dinner at Queen Sheba my dining companions and I were talking about what can be done to help out Corti (besides offering to help him move some vintage port....into my mouth). I'm going to write a letter to the mayor to call her attention to the situation and urge the city to contact him and see if he needs help. Can anybody think of anything else? Where the hell can he move? It's got to be an existing building or he's going to be closed for months. As soon as I get paid I'm going to go blow a bunch of money there. He has my favorite cheap sherry there (La Gitana) among a million other things. Oops, looks like the mayor has already stepped in. I'll send her a letter congratulating her on that, I guess, but now I feel like I can't help at all. There's some good comments on this one. I like the idea of the secret Comptons becoming a Corti Bros. Hell, I love that idea. But I think that Comptons does ok.

I had one of the most enjoyable dinners of my life on friday night at Waterboy. He's got a new menu. Cash in your change at coinstar and go eat there as soon as you can. I've really done that before. I got the skewer of grilled lamb and housemade herbed potato sausage, with polenta and vegetables and the combo of flavors was wonderful. The gulf shrimp salad with chickpeas was also a standout. I want to go back and try the Early Girl tomato gazpacho.

bad news

Well, the big news this morning is the bullshit that was pulled on Corti Bros. It seems like Nancy Cleavinger and Michael Teel pulled a backroom deal to push Corti out. I picked up a free copy of the Bee today that was sitting on a newspaper machine and noted their shitty redesign and this news, and it made me really sad, like Sac is just getting lamer. But that's pessimistic and maybe Corti can come back better than ever. Smiller immediately noted that it would have been pretty awesome if Corti Bros could relocate to where the Albertsons was by our house, but now it's a stupid fucking Rite Aid that always looks totally empty.

dreams really do come true

I ate at Masullo's last night. The pizza is the bomb. The crust is super thin and light with a char on the bottom. The vegetable toppings are seasonal and he has Fra'mani sausage and Niman ranch bacon for the meat toppings. The inside is very cool looking. He even has two communal long tables that are from locally hewn logs. You can't get much more local than that. The prices are reasonable and they are all basically personal sized pizzas although those with small appetites may have a couple of pieces left over. The chef is a local boy made good with a background as a baker and he makes all the desserts. We had a plum galette that was really delicious.

I'm going to Whitey's Jolly Kone for lunch today and the Waterboy for dinner! A dream come true.

15 minutes

Now it seems like Jackson is just messing with me, but I hadn't assumed he had even seen the post so I don't know. What is he even saying about MOM here? That he hasn't heard it but he is going to say-without-saying that he thinks it sucks?

The 15 minutes I did with Larry is in this week, and it's top notch. All credit to Larry. Cute picture.

question for our man in Calcutta

Dave-last night we were discussing the miracle of Indian pizza and wondering if they have it in India-do they?

picture yourself in a boat on a river

Picture if you will a beautiful bowl of beans, ranging in color from lemon yellow to pale green. You have to picture it because my camera is broken. Black-eyed peas are in season, people! Now that I've tried fresh ones, dried ones are going to taste like ashes in my mouth. They will taste like shame and pain. Two pounds in the shell is enough for two entree-sized portions. Shelling them sucks. Here's how I cooked mine, and they tasted like food of the gods.

Saute chopped onion and gypsy pepper (also in season) in two tbl olive oil, 1 tbl butter until slightly soft
add 3 cloves garlic, continue to saute one minute
throw in beans, then add water to just cover
-cook until desired softness, about 20 minutes
-salt and pepper to taste
the beans lose their lovely color and turn brown as they cook, too bad.
I had this for dinner with a sliced golden tomato from Watanabe farms (their booth is back for the summer and filled with tons of varieties of tomatoes), some bread would have been nice.

Now picture if you will, a show at Old Ironsides on a monday night with a ton of happy people! Picture our friends playing in a band backing Phil Wilson on two June Brides songs and the Singles ripping it up after. It was such a treat to watch the Singles surrounded by a sea of pop fans, rather than the usual scenesters (I didn't say hipsters) who often don't pay much attention to whatever band is playing. Now if we could just get the pop fans to put down their knitting, savor the last sip of their chamomile tea, lock the door on their thatched cottages, and come to more shows. J.K., pop fans, you know I love you!

trivia

Wow, that show at West Capitol Bowl was so fun! What a great venue! It was The Night Of A Thousand Good Vibes. Until I dropped my camera, which gave me a bad trip. Otherwise I might have pictures and video. West Capitol Bowl is a great place to ride your bike to and then it was fun to do a critical mass back downtown around 1 am.

It's probably a little late in the day for me to post this, but don't forget the Phil Wilson/Baby Grand/English Singles show tonight at Old Ironsides. Three bucks! Starts early!

The SNR has a well written and though provoking essay on RT as their cover story this week. Also, I took a stab at writing my first book review, which was fun. I can't find the link. Here's a fun piece of SNR trivia, what was the last date that one of Jackson Griffith's columns didn't mention Skinner? A prize to the first person who gets it right.**Also, in their editorial they had a pretty obvious list of ways to save money (well, mostly obvious, things aren't bad enough for me to start ordering cases of sardines from Amazon quite yet), but the part I'd like to point out is the tip about hanging out your clothes to dry. I always forget to try this, and I did it this weekend and I really couldn't believe how fast they dried, and how soft and unwrinkled they were if I brought them back in before they were baked in the sun. Duh, I know but try it for yourselves if you haven't already. And if you want a cheering article about the energy crisis, read this from the New Yorker. It might make you feel that all is not lost.



**hint-it was during the Carter administration.

quick post

If you're in the mood for an acoustic, mellow guitar instrumental show by a living in legend (Peter Walker), there is one at Timed Tested tonight, starting at 8:30.

I'm assuming everyone and their mother and second cousin once removed knows about the Bananas show.

Judy Wong RIP

The show was fun, but Eat Skull got chewed out for going about 40 minutes late. It's not really realistic to expect a show to start at eight and be over by ten, so I hope that doesn't mean there can't be shows at Delta anymore. The Singles played right on time and they were great. The Ganglians seem to have learned to set up faster on tour and they played a pretty long set to an appreciative crowd.
Doesn't Ryan look like Mick Fleetwood. I'm reading his autobiography right now. Did you know that Christine McVie's god-given real name was Christine Perfect? Also, the Mac had a good friend named Judy Wong who was from Sacramento. She seemed to be a real scenester who knew everybody and lived with Patty Boyd, the woman who was married to George Harrison, and didn't he like steal her from Clapton or something. I was convinced maybe I could find her in Sac but I guess she died. Here's some pictures on Bob Welch's website.
Here's the Singles

And some pictures of the underappreciated rhythm section

Tomorrow is the Sammies. Who's going?

tweaker art

I have been eating some delicious, delicious food in preparation for my September article for MM. To give you a little sneak peak, feast your eyes on this!
Here's pictures from the show at the Witchdome. Yellow Fever was really, really good. They are Austin to the max.

Thee Ohsees are so fun to watch live.
By the ending jam I had to sit in an armchair in the corner though, due to these.
They started out feeling like perfectly comfortable wedges, but after more than four hours standing they felt like sharp plastic cages for my feet.

Have you seen the current art exhibit in the window of University Art? Is it just me or do these women kind of look like tweakers?

This deflated breast on a hook is grosser than gross.

Here's the new drink of the summer. It started with me ordering a Negroni at a cute trattoria in Austin. Yeah, that's right, Austin has cute trattorias that can make you drinks with aperitifs and Sac doesn't. Anyway, this is campari with Pellegrino and lime. One is delicious, two is too bitter.

Wow, there is an ocean of shows and I'm drowning in it. Tonight of course is Eat Skull, Ganglians English Singles, it's at Delta and it really really starts at eight, no joke. I didn't even know until just this minute that there is a Phil Wilson/Singles/Baby Grand show at the Press next monday (july 21st). Somehow I thought this show was cancelled! And then this friday, Faun Fables and Agent Ribbons are playing at Bricka Bracka, which is a perfect bill. Faun Fables are Weimar-fairy type music but I really liked them the one time I saw them years ago at the space that is now the Golden Bear. Then saturday is the huge Bananas/Four Eyes blowout at West Capitol bowl in honor of Ms. Baldwin. OK, Mika Miko, you skip Sac on this tour but play Chico?!?!? Good luck with that. You would have had a better show in Sac.

busy beaver

You know what makes me feel like a loser? When I go to Dos Coyotes and they have my order memorized. Also, I accidentally wore tissue-thin rags to work today because I was so tired this morning. I look homeless.

I am busy as a homeless beaver today. I'm looking forward to that Eat Skull/Ganglians show tomorrow. There should be copies of an extra special tour-only Ganglians cassette! The Ganglians have good shirts and Eat Skull have shirts with a drawing of Spock taking a bong hit. Is that good? You decide.

It sucks that almost all of the noteworthy eating I do is always under wraps for MM articles because this blog is sorely lacking in content lately.

This is a little late, but have you read the June/July Sactown? I think I'm going to make the plunge and subscribe, because I buy it every month anyway. The food coverage is still just OK, a C- maybe, and the longest piece is a total puffer of G.V. Hurley that Lark Park wrote. Sactown clued me in to this place. Cheddar cheese ice cream? Oh shit, I just saw how far from downtown it is. Nevermind.

Natural Light Spicy Jerk

Yay, my hangover is subsiding. I thought I was gonna chuke on the train. Yes, I said train, I am back in the Amtrak saddle. Yesterday I cheated death on my way to the station when I was almost hit by a bus. I already filed a report with the city about that. Then, on the way home I was held up for 40 minutes by a brush fire. Is there anything more civilized than getting a beer on the train?

The show last night was fun. I collected for the bands for a while and the Natural Light had loosened my tongue perhaps too much, because when someone would give me a dollar I'd say "wow, a whole dollar" and people didn't seem to appreciate that. One very well dressed couples with extensive tattooing (which I'm pretty sure is not free) each gave me a dollar. One guy gave me fifty cents. A couple of people said they had nothing at all, and that was more believable to me than that you can only afford a dollar. Plenty of people kicked in a lot, though, so it evened out. I sound like a jerk griping about this, and I felt like a jerk later. A Natural Light jerk.

I'm going to be out doing some dayraging tomorrow so I probably won't post. There's a helluva lot going on this weekend. Lizards stuff, a ridic Ohsees show that hopefully won't get busted. Secoond saturday. There's a SNR release party tonight at Bows and Arrows that starts at 6 with Dead Western and free drinks and free elderly pugs. Warm Streams is having a CD release on friday with MOM at Javalounge (MOM was amazing last night, although I was outside collecting for most of it)

58 degrees is having a great sale on French wines for Bastille day that starts today, but I don't see it listed on their website. It's something like 15% off? A good time to splurge on a good bottle of champagne, maybe.

hot hot heat

So, is it hot enough for ya? Har. This heat isn't that bad (I type from airconditioned comfort). The worst thing is hearing everyone talk about it all the time. I hope it doesn't linger too long.

I thought I'd give a plug to It's All Yoga because they have a nice new studio on 21st and X now, with an expanded schedule and room for bigger classes, but maybe you should give it a week because it was really hot in there yesterday. They are trying to figure out how best to cool the place, I guess. This place rules. I love it so much. Check out these FAQs for new students, they illustrate how supportive and cool this place is. That's crazy that crying after class is normal. I've done it twice and I don't even believe in new-agey stuff at all, so there's definitely something to it.

Eat Skull and Ganglians show tonight!!! It's too bad people couldn't resist the urge to make it a four band show, because it's going to be hot as fuck inside, but at least one of the bands is MOM and she plays really short. Starts at eight supposedly.

it could be cool

MD sent me this WSJ article. WTF?** Be sure to take a look at the slide show.






**J.K. It's not WTF, I just wanted to use more acronyms. LOL.

Return to Luby's

Wow. Texas. Waco. I wanted to take a picture that captures the essence of Waco so here it is.

That's the parking lot of Luby's, which was not as good as I remembered it to be. Here's some hope for the future, my 78 year old great aunt Minnie Fay, who has lived in Waco her whole life proudly proclaimed herself to be a lifelong Republican who is going to vote for Barack Obama in the next election.

I'm back! Hope I didn't offend any young thriftsters with that last post. I worried about that over the weekend. You screen whatever on whatever you want. Well, not old Le Tigre shirts, please.

Ganglians play a show at Funcastle tomorrow. Joshua Ploeg is doing food pickups the next three weeks. I'd post his thing but I don't think he wants me to.

I won't write that word.

The SNR broke its long-standing ban on the H word this week. There are two h-related pieces, one by Nick Miller and one by Jackson Griffith. Oh really Jackson? Is that how it is? The photospread accompanying Nick's thing is pretty perfect. That, and the related story on the new place taking over the Olipom space, and most of all the fact that American Apparel has started a vintage ebay store just cemented my fear that young people will eternally just pillage the clothes of the past from now on, and that there will be no good clothes left to thrift. That's ok, they have a right to those clothes too, of course, although I wish they wouldn't silkscreen stuff on all of them and make it so they can't go back into the circle of thrift. I am coping by trying to change up my style and turn a fresh eye on themes and colors that h-types might not be interested in. Salmon and teal? Together? I'm trying it. Plastic-y white wedges? I bought a pair yesterday. I'm going for Boca Raton retiree, with a dash of Jimmy Buffett. Yeah, I know there are plenty of h's going for that, too, but there's nothing really new under the sun, is there? I had to do something because the supply of 70s dresses has dried up.

I'm heading for the motherland tomorrow, for the first time in over ten years. That's right, the state that everyone loves to hate, the hangin' state, the reddest of them all....Texas. Hopefully I will have time to eat some good barbecue. Back on tuesday!

alessi vs. addrisi

I know that you all know about the Addrisi Brothers (see above), but do you know about the Alessi Brothers (see below)? I do now because Mike C. played one of their songs last night and I loved it! They've sold eight million records worldwide! They're identical twins! It wasn't this song, although this song is good. Maybe Mike C. can tell me what the name of it is. All in all, Mike C. was a dream DJ, but the other dude played "Shock The Monkey". NO.