thanks, Ken!

O.M.G. 19 years and two days ago.  Young Scott had no idea that 13 years and one day after this would be the most important day of his life.

Andy Rooney rant

Wow Fresh and Onlys were SUPER GOOD last night.  Everyone was psyched.  G. Green was back to a semi-classic lineup and in good form.  Tonight is the Skaters/Eat Skull side project band at the Dam Haus.

I was thinking on the way to work about all the things the internet and technology have ruined.  Yes, I am going to get all Andy Rooney right now.  Here's what it's ruined:
1) music (music is now disposable, no one can make any money at it, and everyone is afflicted with flavor of the month syndrome)
2) newspapers (I love newspapers and the internet is fucking them.  I read the Bee today in 5 minutes.  It's clearly being written by a skeleton crew)
3)people's attention spans (you know this is true. I try to just go with the flow with this and accept it as the new normal but I somehow can't get used to people looking at screens whenever they have a spare second.  When do people think?)
4) criticism (There will never be another Pauline Kael.  There are no definitive voices because now everyone has a voice.  And yes, I include myself as part of the problem.)

Things it will probably ruin at some point
1) books.  if Kindle-esque things become really big and people can illegally download books easily, they will, and then no one will get paid for writing or publishing books either.
2) movies.  It's already kind of happening.  Now everything has to push to the big opening weekend which leads to horrible crap like Transformers 3.
3) TV.  Everyone is illegally downloading episodes and skipping commercials so at some point when more people have this technology TV will probably have some crisis about how to get paid and everything will have to be made on the cheap or clogged with product placement.

Things it has made better
1) for me, I got a blog which has led to a lot of good stuff
2) it helps you waste time at work, although this is a mixed blessing because it's probably ultimately more satisfying to just do more work
3)Netflix

Things it can't ruin (for me)
1) gardening
2)riding bikes
3)eating and drinking
4)the wonder of pets
5)traveling (it both helps and fucks up traveling in some ways)
6)hanging with friends
writing this list has made me more secure about the world.

so there you go, for me it has wrecked, or is on its way to wrecking, some of the things I like most. and the tradeoffs are just not worth it.  sadly, it is here to stay. This is Andy Rooney, signing off. I wish I could find the video of Andy Rooney complaining about how appliances have different kinds of plugs.  That's a good one.

Oh yeah, I won't be posting for a week or so.  Smell ya later!

I'm stoked

What a birthday! What a country! In Soviet Russia, you celebrate birthdays.  In America, birthdays celebrate you!

Do you know about the show on Wednesday?  You're probably thinking "what show, there are like three shows".  Nuh uh, as far as I'm concerned, there's only one show: woods and fresh and onlys.  I am bummed to miss Ganglians, though.  But yeah, the real show is at Sol Collective on Wednesday.

Then on Thursday in Davis, there's a noise show, wait, don't leave! Keep reading.  It's Spencer from Skaters and a dude from Eat Skull.  It will be cool! Well, I'm stoked on it.

weekend pics

It was an eventful weekend.

Bananas in Oakland....killed it!

 Personal gives me the stinkeye

 Killed it!

 

 Then, No Bunny.....killed it!

 A little something for the ladies

 This was a funny sign by some dog poop in Alameda...wah wah

 Johnny Diamonds on set

 the auteur

 Herecles, not to be confused with Hercules.  Boy is that guy a ham.  Both of them, actually.

 

 the king. what an actor

 Child actor.  Hope he doesn't end up like that Lohan kid

YESSSSSS!!!!!!

King Tuff is coming! King Tuff is coming! Ssssssssooooo sssssssiiiiiiked.

I missed it last week, but Gballz 15 minutes in the SNR is really good.

street art

Ya know what I love about my friends? When I was talking to them about the fair at the Bows grand opening on Tuesday, SO MANY of them had already been to the fair! Even though it had only been open a few days.  I feel that we're united in our love of the fair.

 Here's a tag that showed up on a billboard that's on the right side of the road if you're heading to Davis.  I feel like this is someone well known, right?  I like it.  Street art!

 As soon as I got to the fair, I immediately flushed 6 dollars down the toilet.  J.K., I lost six bucks at the track.  That's flushing six dollars down the toilet the fun way.  They only have thoroughbred racing during the fair, instead of the normal harness racing.

 This rasta banana is a big prize this year

 No caption necessary

 I tried to capture the fact that this goat looked like Brian Peppers, but couldn't do it.

 The Republican booth at the hall of crap had some retro bumper stickers.

 The Sacramento County exhibit is HIDEOUS.  We should all hang our heads in shame.

 But at least it didn't suck as bad as the Yuba one.  Which somehow won an award? Obviously this was fixed.

 I forget which county this was, but this kayaker has a really tiny head.

 and crazy eye

The fresh fried potato chips are good, and a good value.

Viva le fair!

yeah!

Finally, all can be revealed about the next Verge Movie Night.  Did you know that it's been a year since it started?  OK, yeah, at the time it was MidMo movie night and it was at the Hub (RIP), but the first one was on July 22nd and it was our Kenneth Anger Film Festival.  We made cool shirts that said Anger, we had a trivia contest, we did a weenie roast and failed miserably at selling any sodas.  Since then we've had triumphs and failures, we moved to the Verge, the Crest quarterly series started, John Milne came on board with his pro film setup, we've frozen, we've sweated, and it's been a ton of fun.

As a thank you to everyone who has attended, or as a welcome to new peeps who would like to attend, our next movie will be FREE.  Donations to Verge always accepted, or course, heh.  It will be a screening of Russ Meyer's Mudhoney so there will be BOOBS.  We may show a naughty stag film on 35 mm film if it's not too nasty.  We are going to have Sac Treats and Morant's weiners for sale CHEAP.  This movie is NOT ON NETFLIX.

Here are the deets:
Russ Meyer's Mudhoney
Thursday, August 18th
Verge Center for the Arts (625 S st)
7:30 pm

Help me remember, what were all the movie nights?
Kenneth Anger film festival and weenie roast - July 2010
August - El Topo
September - did we have one?
John Carpenter's The Thing - October 2010 (one of the least well-attended)
Shock Corridor - November 2010
December - Les Blank's - Garlic is as good as 10 mothers (so cool!)
Christo documentary - January 2011 (this was one of my faves!!, and where it really started to turn the corner in attendance and energy)
The Magic Christian - February 2011 (this was my personal least favorite movie, but I can't talk since I foisted All That Jazz on people)
All That Jazz - March 2011 (people hate jazz hands, how was I supposed to know?)
Chris and Don - May 2011 (a real tear-jerker)
Marwencol - June 2011

that brings us up to the present day.

I'm going to the fair today. What should I eat?  I am bummed on what is passing for brisket at the chuck wagon these days.

yay

Congratulations, Verge!

no peas and carrots?!?!?

Did you know THE BANANAS are playing on Friday in Oakland?  With No Bunny and Personal and the Pizzas.  What's the deal with this real band getting booked with all these joke bands?  Shit ain't real.

And the Bows grand opening is tonight.  I think I will have FatFace for dinner.

  This is Buster Brown.  My sister got a dog and it's the sweetest, quietest, bundle of fur imaginable. Zero yap.

I had heard tell of this but now I have photographic proof: Los Jarritos no longer puts veg-all in their rice.  Why wasn't this on the front page of the Bee?  Things that haven't changed: the old lady is still there, it's still good, it still gave me an upset stomach.  We saw a lady there whose drink of choice was a tall glass of milk. Disgusting.

weenie roast

Liv and I are snatching victory from the jaws of defeat and cobbling together a VERY FUN Verge movie night for August.  I will announce the deets soon.  Here's a hint: a return to the weenie roast and some saucy programming.

Blank City was very cool.  If you didn't come to the premier I recommend you still see it.

wow

the internet is offering up some friend-related material today:

http://www.gq.com/style/fashion/201107/worst-dressed-cities-america#slide=23

http://bowsandsparrows.com/featured/closet-case-olivia-coelho/

lumia

I saw Tree of Life at the Varsity in Davis the other day and it was like taking off a dirty pair of glasses.  The preview for Midnight in Paris (which I saw at the Tower) was like a whole different, clearer, crisper movie.  Thank you Varsity Theater, I will try to see movies at you more often.  Tree of Life was good and thought provoking.  I thought it was probably the best depiction of rough-and-tumble boyhood that anyone will ever or could ever film.  My favorite thing was the clips of Thomas Wilfred's light artwork "Lumia", which served as a palate cleanser between scenes.

You have to go see Nate Cordero's show at the Nelson Gallery!  Here's an article to pique your interest.

Blank City is at the Crest tonight! DJ Mike C! Talk by Jenny Stark! Movie at 8!

for the love of brew

I got a glimpse of the new bottle shop that's going to be adjacent to Pangaea and it is going to rule!!  It should be open within a couple of weeks.  If we have to have just one good bottle shop in Sac I'm glad it's Rob opening it rather than the Burgers and Brew dudes.  I don't sense any real love of brew from those guys.  Hopefully we'll also have more than one someday, but this one is gonna be good.

Do you guys know about the reception tomorrow for the Nate Cordero show at the Nelson Gallery?  Here's the info.  Looks like there's an upcoming event there (August 12th) that Old Man Foster will be speaking at, along with Chris Daubert. I hope I can go to that too.

basic bitches

What?! They're playing Kreayshawn on 102.5? That's cool.

I'm sure you guys all know about Blank City at the Crest on Friday but do you really KNOW about Blank City at the Crest on Friday?
a) Richard Kern, one of  my favorite perverts
b) benefits the Verge and is a fun way to do it
c) Mike C. is djing beforehand so come hang
d) features downtown gallerist Patti Astor (see above) who created the FUN Gallery, which is legendary, and coincidentally, features prominently in that Art in the Streets show at MOCA
e)talk by CSUS film professor Jenny Stark (that's a perfect punk film name) before and a showing of one of her short films
f)be there!

good one

Yay! Rick wrote a yelp review of Bows to counter the ultra-hateful review that this bitch wrote.  She's now moved on to reviewing the city of Paris on yelp and complaining that they don't give free soda refills.

I love L.A.

Holy Crap! Bows and Arrows continues its media domination in the SacBee on Sunday.  The photos are so good!

Also, the CPK is closing? That's cool.  

L.A. was so fun!!!  Liv and I stayed in Echo Park.  Cute neighborhood and walkable stuff, including a walk to the Echo on Saturday night to see Sonny and the Sunsets.  I was so psyched they were playing there, it was totally out of the blue.  I just saw it in the LA  Weekly and tripped.  I wish they would play Sac.

There was a place in the neighborhood that was like a Mexican Dennys, but good.

We went to the "Art in the Streets" show the MOCA.  That was kind of the reason for the trip.  It's a show that everyone is talking about and probably will be for years to come.  It's is mind-bogglingingly huge.  It encompasses everything from graffiti, to surf, skate, lowrider and punk culture.  It's very entertaining but I didn't find any of it very moving.  I guess it kind of felt empty to me.

Part of the exhibit was a full-sized customized ice cream truck that was blasting The Doors.

I thought one of the more thrilling things to see in person was the original Sex Pistols art.

This show runs until August and it's worth a trip.

The gallery is right near Little Tokyo, so we went to a shop afterwards that sells mochi ice cream, and in this case, mochi gelato.

This is like a very dry peep stuffed with "baby lima beans".  Not very good.

Then we ate at Philippe's French Dip, which rules.  It's been open since 1908.  They have a rivalry with Cole's over who invented the French Dip.

This is the pork dip.

and pickled eggs!

We also went to Watts Towers.  Very inspiring!  I am now going to start making art in my backyard every day after work and all weekend.  Perhaps I will start mosaicing the toilet that is sitting back there.

Tour guide in a pith helmet.

After that, to Compton for Bludsoe's Texas-style bbq.  We just sort of randomly picked it and we were STOKED.  Fuck, I just remembered I didn't eat my leftover mac and cheese.  Goddamnit.  The brisket was soooo tender.

We also went to Cole's, which has an awesome bar, but we were all too full to even taste a french dip, which seems ridiculous to me now.  This is a Moscow Mule.

This is an elegant mint julep.

Here was our cute bartender, laboring away.  We kept goading him about how Phillipe's french dips are older.

Next, back to Little Tokyo for some ramen at a 24 hour ramen spot.  That's the REAL test of a world-class city.  24 hour ramen.

Delicious tan tan men.